Dumbledore Implicit
by ArtemisEpona
Summary: This is a story about how Harry and his friends found the five horcuxes after their sixth year at Hogwarts.
1. Disturbing Dreams

**Chapter One: Disturbing Dreams**

Harry couldn't remember everything that had happened the night before at Bill and Fluer's wedding, though when he strained to recall the wedding's events, he remembered a flagon of wine spilling down Ron's sleeve, Hermione's admonishions as he and Harry gave a slurred toast, and Ginny's cheery-red lips as she ran into the garden with flowers in her hair.

The next morning, Ron had refused to get up, saying his head hurt terribly. His neck was scored in angry red hickies, and Hermione refused tearfully to say what had happened. If Harry couldn't remember, why should she relive it? she'd demanded and run off sobbing wildly into her hands.

When Harry sought answers from Ron's parents, Mr. Weasley merely shook his head solemnly and Mrs. Wealsey burst into tears.

"Ron had a little too much to drink, Harry," Lupin confided in Harry that morning outside of the Borrow. "Fred and George thought it would be funny to spike his punch, but he got so drunk he wound up snogging that girl who works at their joke shop and well . . ."

Harry nodded grimly. After seeing Ron so many times with Lavender he could well imagine what had happened. He wondered where Hermione had gone and how she was, but Lupin told him not to seek her out.

"Why not?" Harry asked, startled.

"She's angry at you too, Harry," Lupin said gravely. "Ron wasn't the only one who was spiked."

"I -- you mean --" Harry touched his head. "No _wonder _I can't remember anything . . . but my head didn't hurt this morning like Ron's -- "

"I don't believe you drank nearly enough. It was some kind of joke wine the twins made for Ron's coming of age. They just wanted to prank him, but the wine turned out to be stronger on him than they expected."

"So . . ." began Harry with a heavy feeling of dread. "So -- what exactly _did _I do to upset Hermione?"

Lupin looked uncomfortable and gazed off into the morning mist with narrowed eyes. "The morning's getting along, isn't it? I've got important -- I've got unfinished work -- Order business, you know." and hestrolled down the lawn to the road, where he disapparated, leaving Harry quite clueless and miserable.

When more people came by the Borrow to congradulate the newlyweds' parents that Sunday, most of them snickered when they saw Harry or pretended not to see him at all. Professor McGonagall was (if possible) even more strict and formal than usual. Instead of greeting Harry with a curt "morning Potter," she merely tilted her head in awkward acknowledgement and marched past with tightened lips.

"Will someone please just tell me what I've done!" Harry growled to no one in particular as he watched from the Weasley's wild garden the departure of more wizards and witches.

"Talking to yourself, are you?I guess the prank wine still hasn't worn off."

Harry turned. Ginny was marching through the garden from the direction of the hill on which Harry and her brothers had often played quidditch, her green cape floating behind her in a flurry of fabric. She had an old broomstick perched on her shoulder and her eyes twinkled with bitter amusement.

"Mad at me too, eh?" Harry asked, noting the slight sarcasm in her voice.

Ginny halted, facing Harry.

"I'd like to be," she answered honestly and it was amazing how much she resembled Mrs. Wealseyas her nostrils flared momentarily. "ButI know it wasn't _your _fault, what you did."

"But what didI do!" Harry burst.

Ginny rolled her eyes: "The Elixir of Life. That's what Fred and George called their little prank wine. They thought it was terribly clever at the time, but apparently Mum and Dad didn't. Dad went stark white and could barely string a sentence together he was so angry and Mum went beserk and chased them out of the house with the kitchen silverware when they tried to apologize."

"And she doesn't blame me?" Harry asked anxiously.

Ginny's lips twisted into a half smile, "She never does."

There was a pause as both of them watched the sunlight illuminate the Weasley's wild garden and bring it to life. Harry stood with his hands in his pockets, wondering what he could say to get around whatever it was he had done at the wedding the day before.

"So . . . you were flying? Reckon we could fly together?"

Ginny's eyes hardened, "Don't you think you did enough flying last night?"

She lifted her eyebrows as if she thought this was a stony hint, but when Harry remained perplexed, she scowled and rolled her eyes to the heavens again.

"Ginny," Harry said, angry suddenly. "If you just _told_ me what it was I did -- "

But she walked away from him while he was speaking and didn't look back when he called her name.

"Everyone's mad at me," Harry grumbled to himself as he flopped moodily on a patch of grass in the garden. "ButI guess that's nothing new . . ." He laughed bitterly.

"In your defense, Harry, what you did was completely out of your control."

Harry looked up and his heart leapt a mile: Dumbledore was seated on a rock near the cracked shed in the Weasley's garden, resplendid in white robes. He smiled serenly at Harry.

"I hope you're not chewing gum. It would be a _shame_ to have survived so very much only to meet your downfall because of a slab of treebark lodged in the throat."

Harry blinked and after a moment of frightened staring, whispered, "Professor?"

"At your service, Harry," Dumbledore murmured, still smiling.

Harry stood slowly, "But -- but how is it --" He swallowed, feeling the hot tears rise. "You're dead! I saw it happen!"

Dumbledore nodded gravely. "Yes, yes. You saw it. But you didn't see what you thought. Come. Sit." He gestured to another large rock that seemed to have appeared out of no where beside him.

Harry didn't move. "It must be the prank wine," he said to himself, running a hand through his wild hair. He looked at Dumbledore and blinked. "It must be . . ."

"Yes, Harry, I am dead. And, yes, Harry, I am also sitting right before you."

"You're dead . . . so are you a ghost? Or is this the prank wine?" He blinked again and shook his head.

"No, it is not the prank wine, and, unlike most ghosts, I am quite substantial." Dumbledore offered his hand, and Harry crept forward to touch it gingerly with his finger.

He gasped.

"Good," said Dumbledore cheerfully. "Now that we have established that, yes, I am dead and that, yes, I am seated here before you . . ." He gestured to the large rock he'd indicated before and Harry sat.

"But . . . is this . . ._ real_?" Harry asked, blinking in the sunlight. "I mean, am I dreaming? Did I really get drunk at the wedding? Or was that a dream too?"

Dumbledore was smiling. "You haven't changed a bit, I see. You are too stubborn to be deterred. It has always been an _excellent_ quality of yours." His smile widened. "No, Harry, this is not a dream. I have been sent back, by whom I shall not say, to impart to you a certain knowledge that I failed to before, but only -- and ONLY -- because it had not occured to me."

Harry waited.

"Do you remember, Harry, when I told you that Voldemort had put a little of himself into you?"

Harry nodded, waiting, but his heart was already full of dread.

Dumbledore sighed and gazed off into the horizon, "Lovely sunrise, isn't it?"

"Professor . . .?" Harry said uncertainly. The sun had completely risen hours ago.

"Yes, lovely. But it can only really rise when the darkness has waned, and even then it must set . . . in the end."

"What are you trying -- "

"Oh! Look at that!" Dumbledore started and Harry was surprised to see a watch on the older wizard's arm. "I'm late." He leaned over and whispered with a confidential smile, "Even in death one must be punctual, Harry. Well, I'm off. Say hello to Minerva for me. She's been looking rather peaked. Tell her not to worry. The end is near."

He stood and marched across the grass. Harry was amazed to see a bright portal of light in the morning fog.

"Wait! Professor!"

Dumbledore paused and looked back with an imploring smile, "Yes, Harry?"

"What is it you came to tell me?"

"What is the cure for hatred, Harry?"

Harry blinked, "Wot?"

"The cure for hatred!" Dumbledore smiled even wider. He seemed to be enjoying himself immensely.

Harry wanted to say a good kick in the pants. Dumbledore laughed as if he'd read Harry's mind.

"No, no -- though the remedy has worked on minor occasions. The cure is understanding, Harry. It's very hard to hate what you understand. Good bye!" and he stepped into the light, never turning when Harry called after him.

"Harry! _Harry!_ HARRY!" Someone hit Harry in the face with a glass of water. He sat up, gasping, to find that he was on his cot in Ron's room.


	2. The Wedding

**Chapter Two: The Wedding**

"We've been trying to wake you for hours, mate," Ron said increduously.

Fred and George nodded on either side of him.

"He's right," added Fred, "Another hour and we were going to rev up Dad's sparkplug collection."

"Mum didn't want us to make your hair stand on end," George added, rolling his eyes. "But we had to remind her that it's _already _standing on end."

Harry laughed hoarsely, "Remind me to thank your mum."

"What were you dreaming anyway?" asked Ron curiously as he sat on the end of his own bed.

"We thought you might be having a nightmare -- " said Fred.

"Or another vision --" said George anxiously.

"But there was no retching and screaming, so . . ."

Harry laughed dryly. If it hadn't been a nightmare then it was borderline. He told the others how he'd dreamt of the twins' prank wine, of how he and Ron had gotten drunk and Hermione had cried. He was careful to leave out the part about Dumbledore. He didn't want them to look at him like the rest of the world -- as if he was unstable.

"Oh, Hermione. She's here too," moaned Ron. "I can't get her to leave me alone. Honestly, the woman's gotten even _more_ mental!"

"If that's possible," snickered Fred.

"You'd better get up," Ron said, ignoring his brother. "The wedding's in another hour and Mum wanted to tackle your hair beforehand."

Harry pulled his sheets back. "Yeah, alright."

The wedding was in the most beautiful place anyone could think of: the Weasleys' wild garden. The weeds were decorated with tiny red and white flowers, curtisy of Fluer's mother. Fairies darted in and out of the bushes, giggling as they zoomed past people's ears.

"Reception's not bad," Ron muttered to Harry and tipped his glass to his lips.

"Wait, wait . . ." Harry took Ron's glass and tapped it with his wand. Nothing happened.

"What the bloody hell . . .?" demanded Ron, confused, as he took his glass back.

"Just checking."

"You're getting worse than Hermione. Mind you, _she'll _be wanting to get married next." He smiled nervously across the way at Hermione, who was dressed in a soft pastel blue with her bushy brown hair smoothed into a bun.

She stood with Ginny and Gabriel Delacour under a tree magicked into the garden for the occasion. The three girls were smiling and giggling rather strangely. It seemed the wedding had had that effect on all of the women. Mrs. Weasley, for instance, kept bawling and laughing at intervals. It was driving Mr. Wealsey up the walls.

Hermione spotted Ron's nervous smile and waved at him coyly. Ginny and Gabriel giggled.

"_Married_?" yelped Harry, his body tingling as he realized Ginny was smiling demurely in his direction. "Do you really think that's like Hermione? I mean, she's usually pretty levelheaded."

"She's not herself lately. I'm telling you, mate, this wedding's got them all bonkers." Ron nodded wisely and sipped from his glass.

"You're right, Ron. It's like they've all forgotten . . ."

Ron went rigid, watching Harry over the top of his glass. "Look, let's not think of it. You'll have plenty of time _after_ the wedding to be moody and vengful."

Harry shot him a dark look but melted into laughter at the grin on his friend's face. "Yeah, yeah, you're right."

They spent the next few minutes reminiscing before they were approached by Hermione and Ginny.

Hermione greeted Ron with a kiss on the cheek. Ron blushed crimson right up into his hairline.

"It was so beautiful, wasn't it?" Hermione said brightly. "I thought I'd cry when Bill gave his vows."

Ron rolled his eyes, remembering his soaked dress robes. "You _did_ cry."

"Fluer's accent was so thick, I thought she had a cold," said Ginny with slight distaste. "I've tried to like her, honestly, but after the ceremony she patted me on the head like a dog and said I'd turned out better than she could have hoped in _fine_ clothing."

Ron frowned at her, "Will you give it a rest?"

"Oh, come on, Ron," snapped Hermione with a hot light in her eye. "She's your sister-in-law now! It's weird to have a crush on her!"

"I DON'T have a crush on her!"

"Uh-oh," muttered Ginny to Harry as Ron and Hermione glared at each other.

"Let's move off before the crap hits the fan," Harry suggested. He offered his arm, "Shall we?"

Smiling, Ginny took it, "Of course."

But they had barely gotten ten feet away from the explosion that was Ron and Hermione's argument, when a great black dog bounded toward Harry and sent him staggering back. Harry stared, unable to believe his eyes, as the dog slobbered on Ginny. But when he blinked again he realized --

"Sorry, there, Ginny -- Harry -- DOWN FANG!" Hagrid boomed. "Yeh might ask what a dog is doin' at a wedding, but I didn't want to leave ol' Fang alone. He's bad off 'nough as it is what with bein' burned an' all --" Hagrid paused in the act of the yanking Fang's collar, frowning with concern. "Alright there, Harry? You look pale."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm alright . . . excuse me, Ginny . . ."

Harry wasn't alright. He hurried away, trying not to think of Sirius, feelng sick and sad and suddenly very tired. His nightmare about the prank wine had left him restless throughout the night, tossing and turning, and it was only when he had begun to dream of Dumbledore that he'd gotten any rest at all. Now the lack of proper sleep was catching up to him, and he staggered quickly through the crowded garden, past concerned murmurs and whispers, banquet tables, and the band, and shut himself up in the Weasley's old shed with a loud creaking snap of the door.

Once alone in the cool shadows of the tiny wooden shack, Harry slumped down the wall and buried his face in his hands, breathing hard into his knees.

"Forget Sirius!" he told himself through his teeth. "He's dead! He's dead! And so is Dumbledore!"

Then he remembered with a pang that Dumbledore had spoken to him with concern in this very shed only the year before.

Outside, he could hear the guests' murmurs rise and hoped against hope that no one would come to check in him.

"Just a moment's peace . . ." he slurred, and in that moment's peace had nodded off against his folded knees.

"Harry? Harry!"

Harry opened his eyes to find his old headmaster seated quite comfortably on an upturned mop bucket opposite him. He nearly yelped, but covered his mouth and stared.

"Professor? Am I dreaming again?"

"Yes, I'm afraid you are, Harry. It's funny how much of our lives we spend dreaming . . ."

"But you lied to me before!" Harry accused. "You said it wasn't a dream!"

Dumbledore shook his silver head patiently, "My boy, if I'd told you it was a dream, would you have listened to me?"

"No . . ." Harry admitted. "But even though I listened, I still didn't understand what you were trying to say! What was it about the sunrise waning . . ." He broke off in confusion.

"Logic. Yes, very few wizards have it. I had hoped to expound upon the importance of logic in the wizarding school system, but alas, Voldemort became a little more important . . ."

"Professor," said Harry, bracing himself against the wall behind him, "Why do you keep visiting me in my dreams?"

"The dead have many ways of reaching the living, Harry. I merely chose the more effective way in your case -- dreams. It really is a shame how poor your sleeping patterns are."

He smiled, and Harry couldn't help but smile in return.

"But WHY are you reaching me? What is it you want?"

"What does any professor want?"

"For us . . . for _students_ . . . to listen?"

"Bravo, Harry, bravo, " Dumbledore said cheerfully. "Now, before any one of those good people outside these doors come and wake you -- tell me what you heard in your last dream -- assuming, of course, that you listened." The blue eyes twinkled.

"You told me . . ." Harry paused uncertainly before he remembered. "You told me that Voldemort put a little of himself into me the night he tried to -- well, to kill me."

Dumbledore nodded serenly. "Go on."

"And . . ." Harry stared as it dawned on him, "And that there were seven horcruxes . . ."

Dumbledore smiled and nodded his approval, "Now you see. Now you'll get somewhere."

"But . . . if I want to destroy all the horcruxes, that means . . ."

Dumbledore's expression was grave. "Exactly, Harry. Exactly."

"Bloody hell! You're out _again_?"

Harry was jolted rudely out of his dream as Ron shook him roughly by the shoulder. He felt his friend slap his face hard on each cheek and brushed him off.

"Knock it off, Ron! I'm alive!"

Ron snorted, "You could've fooled me. Everyone out there is worried. I tried to tell Mum you were fine, but she badgered me so much I finally had to come wake you. Is . . . "

Ron paused as he realized a crowd of gossipy witches stood easedropping nearby and shut the doors of the shed behind them, cloaking Harry and himself in gloom.

"Is there something going on you should tell me, mate? What's happening to you? I was scared a moment that you'd had a vision and gotten sick."

Harry hesitated about telling Ron, but remembered Dumbledore's advice that he share secrets with his friends. They were his family afterall and keeping secrets from them was too much like isolating himself.

"I've been having these dreams . . ."

"More great news," said Ron miserably. "Are they visions like before? You seeing You-know-who again?"

Harry shook his head, "No, no, they aren't bad dreams or even visions . . ."

Harry paused as the shed door opened again and Hermione and Ginny peered in with concern, causing the young wizards to squint and sheild their eyes in the sunlight.

"You -- stay," ordered Ron, jabbing a finger at Hermione. He pointed at Ginny, "You -- out --"

Ginny scowled, but Herminoe whispered something in her ear and she left peacefully, smirking at Ron.

"What did you say to her?" demanded Ron suspicously.

Hermione merely elbowed him aside. "Shush, nevermind that now -- are you alright, Harry?"

"I'm fine. I was about to tell Ron --"

"Harry's having funny dreams again," Ron said with a grave expression that Hermione shared at the news.

"Visions or --"

"No, _dreams_," Harry said, wishing they weren't all crammed in the shed.

With the two of them there, he wasn't sure he could even stand. He had to look up into their concerned faces from his crouched position on the floor and the shafts of light streaming through the ceiling made him squint.

"I haven't been seeing people murdered or tortured like the year before last. I've been seeing . . ." Harry paused and took a deep breath. "I've been having visits from Dumbledore."

He looked up, dreading the expressions they would exchange, dreading what they both might be thinking. But Ron and Hermione only looked concerned and attentive. Harry felt a rush of gratitude toward them and continued.

"And just now, when I was walking with Ginny, I thought Fang was Sirius."

"Oh, Harry," moaned Hermione, looking as if she wanted to hug her friend.

"I won't say you're cracking up," Ron said bracingly. "You've always had weird stuff happen to you -- but are you sure you just aren't tired? I mean, what did Dumbledore _say_?"

Harry stared at his own knees. Could he really tell Ron and Hermione what was making his breathing irregular even now? That he was a horcrux? That he had to die? But it couldn't be what Dumbledore meant . . . Maybe he was wrong . . .

_Neither can live while the other survives . . ._

He'd always thought that had meant that only one of them could live -- him or Voldemort. Even Dumbledore had thought that.

"I'm . . ." he hesitated and swallowed, "I'm not sure I can . . ."

"You can tell us anything, Harry. You know that," said Hermione, twisting her gown nervously in her fingers.

With his hand on her shoulder, Ron nodded. Harry smirked. They already looked like an old Weasley couple.

"Wot?" Ron said, seeing Harry's expression.

"I was just thinking . . . You guys are my best friends. Today's a happy day and I won't ruin it."

Ron nodded uncertainly, "Alright. But you _will_ tell us, won't you?"

Harry smiled grimly, "On my life -- no! make that on Voldemort's life!"

Ron winced, but he and Hermione laughed as they headed out of the shed and back into the party.

The rest of the wedding reception went smoothly -- or as smoothly as it could go once Fang got over-excited. The large boarhound had healed rapidly in the hospital and it seemed his speedy recovery had added to his energy. He got so excited that even Hagrid could not control him, and broke his leash, running full-tilt toward Fluer.

Bill tried to sheild Fluer and take the blow for her, but to no avail -- Fang gave a mighty leap and pinned the newlyweds down. He attacked a sobbing, screaming Fluer with a series of large laps and finally gobbled her cake and plate down whole, while Bill sat up and began to laugh nonstop.

"Fang! Down! Down! What's the matter wid yeh?" cried Hagrid.

"Oh, honey," Bill laughed, helping his cake-covered wife up as she continued to sob and curse and complain. "You'll look back on this and laugh!"

"You bet she will," sniggered Fred to Harry. "George and I have gotten plenty of good pictures."

Once the guests were dispersing and the newlyweds had finally been bid farewell as they departed for their honeymoon, a calm fell over the Borrow that Harry felt it had not known for a long time.

He and Ron slouched in the Wealsey's livingroom with their ties loose as if they'd just come from a long day's work and Hermione joined them from the kitchen with a cold glass of pumpkin juice.

"Now that _that's_ over," she said and pulled her hair loose.

Harry stirred uncomfortably in his chair. Watching Hermione as she drank from her glass with her hair long and full behind her brought back memories from his first dream in Ron's room. He could almost remember . . . he could almost remember being somewhere with Hermione very private . . . But, no, he'd never dream something like that about Hermione. Hermione was Ron's girl -- had always been -- and, besides, he cared about Ginny.

Ginny chose that moment to enter the room and sat comfortably in a chair near the fire with dignity. It was clear she was stillannoyed by Ron's rudeness, and she watched the three of them as if expecting them to reveal something to her.

"Yes?" snapped Ron when Ginny continued to stare with probing brown eyes.

"What went on in the shed?" Ginny asked without preamble.

Ron and Hermione glanced nervously at Harry.

"Hermione, whatever you said to get her to scram, say it again," muttered Ron.

"I told her you scratch yourself with your wand when you think no one's looking and that one time you accidentally turned the crouch of your pants yellow."

Harry bit his lip to keep from laughing while Ron went beet red and glowered at Hermione.

"What?" said Herminoe innocently. "It's true."

"Harry," Ginny looked straight into Harry's eyes, "I just want to know that everything's alright with you."

Harry wished that he could say it was.

"You know me -- nothing's ever alright," he said, half-smiling.

"I expect you'll feel better once we get back to school," Ginny said slyly, but no one picked up on the testing tone of her voice.

The other three went rigid and exchanged guilty looks.

"I knew it!" Ginny said, eyes firing.

"_Ginny_ . . ." began Ron in exasperation.

"If you're not going back to school then what's going on? I won't tell anyone!" She ignored Hermione's nervous silence and Ron's impatient grumbling and appealed to Harry.

"Ginny, I didn't ask you to come because it's too dangerous. I didn't even want Ron and Hermione to come --"

"But we are," Ron said firmly.

"Should've known you were being noble again," Ginny said fondly, but she sat back in her chair and scowled to herself. "Coming with the three of you will be no more dangerous than sitting at Hogwarts like a duck in a pond."

"Ginny, you're not of age! And what about Mum and Dad? They'd kill me if they found out I'd dragged my sister along to get killed -- _I'd _kill me!"

Hermione nodded fervently, "Besides, you should keep on with school."

Everyone stared at her.

"You _never_ change," said Ron in amazement. "You-Know-Who's power is at an all-time high and all you care about --"

"I care about Ginny just as much as you, Ron!" Hermione snapped. "I'm only thinking of her well being. "

"Fine." Ginny shrugged. "I won't come. But, Harry, would you keep something for me?"

Harry looked around at her, pleasantly surprised but puzzled all the same.

"Sure."

Ginny crossed the room to Harry, kissed her fingers, and touched Harry's lips. Then she moved from the room, leaving Harry feeling quite miserable.

"We'd better watch her," said Ron, following Ginny's back with his eyes as his sister moved toward the stairs. "She's usually more stubborn than that, which means she's got some other motive planned."

"So we're leaving tomorrow, are we?" Hermione asked, her voice strangely highpitched as she stared at the other two.

"As soon as possible," Harry answered.

"And you know where we're going?" Ron asked.

"Not unless one of you know where Zacharia Smith lives."

Ron sat boltupright, his face twisted in a sneer. "That Smith bloke? That idiot with all the -- " He rocked in his chair and moved his legs, imitating Zacharias Smith's bouncy stride.

Harry nodded.

"Why the bloody hell are we going there?" Ron demanded in disgust.

"Because," said Harry, "wherever Voldemort went (Ron winced) that's where we'll go."


	3. The Secret of HufflePuff

**Chapter Three: The Secret of HufflePuff Mansion**

No one besides Ginny knew that Harry, Ron, and Hermione weren't going to school. When September rolled around, they packed their belongings as usual and even went so far as to buy fresh school supplies.

"Don't see any point in this," Ron grumbled as he tipped a large stack of books in his trunk. "Why not just tell everyone the truth? We're dead anyway once they realize the three of us aren't at school."

"Telling your mum we're cutting our last year would only cause a scene," said Harry, remembering a few of Mrs. Weasley's past scenes. "And, besides, telling her would mean explaining about the horcruxes, and Dumbledore advised me to keep it secret."

"Bad idea if you ask me," said Ron, shaking his head. "I mean, if we just_ told_ everyone about it -- namely the Order -- they'd set out trying to help."

"I dunno," Harry said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Sometimes I don't know who we can trust. I mean, look at Snape!" He kicked his trunk shut with a disgusted flourish.

"Guess that's settled," Ron said and slouched miserably onto his trunk. "The problem now is getting that idiot Smith's address."

"Leave that to me."

They both looked up to see Ginny leaning in the doorway.

"Ginny!" Ron yelled indignantly.

Ginny rolled her eyes, "You were talking so loud Mum could've heard you from the kitchen. Anyway, I know about Smith. He's not going back to school either -- not after what happened last year. His family seems particularily hush hush about it."

"Good," said Ron, perking up. "Then you can tell us."

"On one condition."

"_Ginny_," groaned Harry and Ron.

Ginny lifted her eyebrows, "Alright then." and she turned as if she would march off, but Harry and Ron called her back.

"What is it you want then," Harry said with a fond smirk.

Ginny smiled.

"I can't _believe_ you let her come along!" Ron groaned as he, Harry, Hermione, and Ginny moved up a neat garden path.

"Add Neville and Luna and we might as well have the old gang back," Harry said under his breath.

The garden path led to a large old mansion on the crest of a hill. It was flanked by two spidery trees while the entire estate was surrounded by a tall brick wall. The four of them had been buzzed in through the front gate.

Harry was chilled as he realized he was walking in Voldemort's footsteps. He'd been to the Hufflepuff Mansion before, but that had only been a memory. This was real.

They had barely reached the knocker when the double doors opened a crack and a withered voice demanded, "Your wands, please!"

Ron's nose wrinkled, "Wot?"

"Your wands!"

"No way!" Ron cried."I'm not walking into a strange, old, creepy place without --"

"Of _course_ we'll hand over our wands," Hermione said over him, smiling mechanically.

Once their wands had been collected,they were shown by a young house elf down a hall and into a side room with large, floorlength windows and billowy, white curtains. A fairly plump old witch sat in an arm chair smoking a pipe.

"Oh! Zacharias's friends!" she cried cheerfully in her deep, croaking voice. "Come in! Come in! My _Zachy_ never mentioned having friends before!" She said the namely oddly, almost with disgust.

Ron sniggered, "I wonder why."

Ginny elbowed him. "Oh, yes," she said, "Zach and I dated the year before last."

Ron stared at her, "You're joking, right?"

"Shut up!" Hermione hissed.

"So what brings you fine children to my hall?" the plump woman croaked, rocking in her fluffy armchair. "Parents kept you out of school?"

She was eying Harry closely. She knew very well he hadn't any parents to withdraw him from Hogwarts, knew that the Muggles he'd lived with probably didn't even know what had happened the year before.

"It's more the history of this house, really," Hermione said pleasantly. "Ron's mum promised to homeschool us for our last year, and we've all got this project."

"Oh, really?" croaked the woman suspicously, "And what's that?"

"To reasearch the four founders of Hogwarts," Hermione said with an eager light in her eye.

The others watched her spin out lie after lie in amazement.

"Is that so?" the woman croaked at the rest of them.

Harry and Ron looked at each other and shrugged, "Er - yeah, yeah. That's right."

Ginny rolled her eyes and jumped in with Herminon: "We need a bit of information about their family histories, and since the Smiths are Hufflepuff's only living decendants -- well, we thought such a well-educated _pureblood _witch like yourself could tell us anything."

The plump witch's eye twinkled as if she knew Ginny's game, but she swelled under the compliments nonetheless.

"Yes, yes, I know quite a bit, more than you'd reckon, youngling. I inheirited this mansion through my father and he through his father's mother. Back when old Hezipah died from the foolish house elf's mistake -- are you alright, Mr. Potter?"

Harry had stirred uncomfortably in his chair. Voldemort had killed Hezipah, not the house elf.

"I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" the woman asked shrewdly, her eyes narrowing.

Harry nodded, "Just -- small cold." He coughed, cleared his throat, and smiled nervously at the witch, who wasn't convinced at all.

The plump witch sat back in her chair and drew on the pipe.

"Well, as I was saying . . . back when old Hezipah died no one was sure what to do. She never really was close to her extended family. Was so certain we'd all steal her prized possessions, see? So when the time came to decide what to do with the family hierlooms and the house, it all went to Hezipah's younger sister, Dora."

"And the hierlooms?" asked Ron.

"Some were stolen, of course," she said, fixing Ron with a beady stare. " . . . why do you ask, young Weasley?"

Harry spoke for him, "It was Dumbledore's dieing wish that the heirlooms be put on display at Hogwarts -- in honor of its four founders."

The plump old woman snorted, "And you four are the ones to do it, eh? I tell you, today's youth . . ."

The four of them merely watched her.

She drew on her pipe, exhaled a ring of smoke shaped like a billowing ship, and watched them a moment before she continued.

"They say that after that old house elf snuffed Hezipah she took the heirlooms and hid them herself. I'd be more than willing to give them over -- if, or course, it really _was _Dumbledore's dieing wish."

Something like a tear glistened in her eye and when she drew on the pipe again, the smoke expelled from her nostrils in a large phoenix.

Just then, a thin boy with bright blonde hair bounced past the large room, backtracked, and did a doubletake on its occupants.

"What in the blue blazes?" the boy whispered in outrage.

"Zachy, it's your friends come to visit," said the old witch and pulled on her pipe again as she watched her grandson's expression shrewdly.

Zacharias was carrying an armload of books and was probably off to his lessons for that morning. The books fell from his arms with a thud to the carpet. He stood in the large doorway, pale as a ghost and sneering.

"Hullo!" Ron said with a sarcastic wave and a smile.

Zacharias mouthed wordlessly until his eyes fell on Harry. "Potter?" he sneered, "Weasley? Granger?" He looked at his grandmother for an explaination.

The old woman was chuckling.

Zacharias's grandmother's chuckling seemed to help him compose himself. He drew himself up, glaring at the unwelcome guests, "Potter, I want you out of my house -- as if I need You-Know-Who popping up at our door with a killing curse because of you."

"You'd only be so lucky," sneered Ron, rolling up his sleeves. He only half-rose from his seat because Hermione grabbed his arm and forced him down.

"No, Hermione, he's right," Harry said quietly. "Let's go."

"Well," said Zacharias, smirking as the four of them filed past, "you've got more sense than the papers tell, Potter. One more minute and I would have blasted you." He waved his wand lightly as the house elf handed them back their wands on the door step. Then the doors slammed shut in their faces with a resounding bang.

"Bloody idiot," muttered Ron. "They should have a repellent for people like that, if you ask me."

Ron and Hermione had turned to leave, but Ginny called, "Wait!" Harry was still standing on the door step, his wand clenched tightly in his fist and his lips pressed together.

She placed her hand carefully on his shoulder, "Harry?"

Harry didn't turn, "We're not leaving."

"But we were kicked out," Hermione said worriedly.

"Yeah, what do you suggest we do, break down the door?" Ron demanded incredulously.

"Zachy, your tea is ready!" called a pleasant voice from Zacharias's study.

"Excellent!" Zacharias ran with his books to his study where a small table had been set up complete with a tea tray and six stuffed animal friends.

"_Mum_," Zacharias groaned. "I've told you -- I'm too old for tea parties!"

Mrs. Smith straightened up and beckoned him forward, smiling, "Oh, come now, Zachy, just for old time's sake -- for me? Please?" She rubbed his shoulders and smoothed his blonde hair.

Zacharias slumped into a chair reluctantly, "Alright, alright. But no pictures this time -- and couldI have some pillows a little less pink and fluffy?" he demanded after his mother as she left the room.

"Ah, this is too easy," snickered Ron as he, Harry, and Ginny hovered on broomsticks outside the windows of the Hufflepuff mansion.

Ron had nicked the twins' camera and they were using it now to take pictures of Zacharia Smith as he drank tea with his teddies and pink elephants. In one snapshot he even held a large grossly purple rhino closely in his arms.

"I really don't think this is ethical," piped Hermione from the ground, who hadn't a broomstick. She'd been deemed the lookout and was far below shifting nervously from foot to foot.

"Look at the pot calling the kettle black," laughed Ron. "Aren't forgeting Rita Skeeter, are we?"

"That was different!" piped Hermione indignantly. "She was saying things to harm people! What has Zacharias done?"

"Besides be a git, you mean?" retorted Ron under his breath as he took yet another snapshot.

The picture was badly timed. Zacharias caught the glare of the flash as he was bending to pick a book up from the carpet and froze in a state of fury and horror. Ron flashed another sarcastic smile and waved his camera, Harry and Ginny smirking beside him.

"Alright, Potter, what do you want?" Zacharias demanded once he'd managed to sneak outside and had appraoched his four peers.

"We want to be able to poke around the mansion -- without anyone stopping us," Harry replied.

"Whatever you're looking for, it's not here!" Zacharias sneered.

"But there may be clues that can lead us on, and the sooner we _find_ those clues, the sooner we're out of your hair." Harry waited, his arms folded, as Zacharia's face went through a series of strange expressions.

The Hufflepuff heir was clearly against letting Harry Potter and his friends into his home, but on the other hand, if he did, the four of them would be gone a lot sooner.

"And if I let you in, you hand over those photos," Zacharias demanded.

"_After _we've had a look around," confirmed Ginny.

"Alright," Zacharias said reluctantly. "But just what is it you're after anyway?"

Ron squeezed Zacharias's shoulder a little too hard, "If we told you, we'd have to kill you. Can't we tell him, Harry?"

Harry and Ginny laughed, Hermione scowled, and Zacharias shook Ron's hand off angrily.

"I can't get you in right now. Go around the back and in about an hour I'll let you in the door. I've got lessons," he said uncomfortably. With that, he straigthened his wizarding hat, turned on his heel, and marched in his bouncy stride back to the mansion.

"He's got more lessons, alright -- with Dinky and Nana Booboo and whatever else he calls those fluffy friends of his," grumbled Ron. "What are we supposed to do for an hour?"

Ginny smiled at Harry.

"Potter! Pist! Potter!"

Harry heard Zacharias's voice as if from a great distance. He'd been swept away in an entirely different world, where peace and equality reigned and Voldemort did not exist -- to put it plainly, he'd been in Ginny's arms. They sat together in one of the great trees on the Hufflepuff property beneath Harry's invisibility cloak, her head on his shoudler, hand in hand, and nothing else in the world had mattered.

Now Zacharias Smith was calling his name and he was plunged once again into the world of worry and woe.

"We'd better hop down," Harry said with a reluctant sigh as he summoned his Firebolt.

"Yeah, alright."

They met Ron and Hermione on the ground. Hermione looked oddly ruffled.

"Ready?" she said breathlessly to Harry.

Harry smiled at the shadow of a dazed, happy expression he was certain Ron had worn only moments before in a private moment with Hermione.

"Born that way," he replied, slapping Ron's shoulder. "Come on."

Zacharias let them in through the back door, standing stiffly beside it and sneering at them as they entered. They descended a stone stair swept in gray cobwebs into the gloom of an old storage room. Harry pulled his wand and had just enough time to whisper _Lumos_ before the door above was snapped shut and they were plunged into darkness.

"We used to have a ghoul down here," came Zachrias's voice from the top of the stairs as he descended in the darkness towards them. They heard him whisper _Lumos_ as the rest of them had and his haughty face appeared in the eerie glow of his wand. "But some great aunt of mine banished it when it kept kidnapping the house elves."

Zacharias was pleased to hear Hermione give a horrified gasp.

"Why are you still here? Just show us the stairs, alright?" demanded Ron roughly.

"I can't very well let the four of you snoop around the house without me. No one else will bother you -- I won't allow it if it will send you on your way -- but I never said --"

"That you wouldn't annoy us yourself," snapped Harry.

Zacharias paused as if biting back his words and glared, his wand light throughing his chin into ghoulish shadow.

"Fine, whatever you want," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "Where do you want to look first, Harry?"

"This cellar seems the perfect place for clues," Harry answered. "Isn't it where your ancestor hid the family heirlooms?" he shot at Zacharias.

Zacharias stiffened at being spoken to so abruptly. His eyes narrowed as if he was preparing to say something nasty and then he seemed to remember the embarassing snapshots and bit back his words again.

"Legend would have it," Zacharias answered sniffily, "that she hid them in an underground chamber. There were dwarves that she paid to guard the heirlooms night and day and a spell that sucked you into the wall alive if you somehow got past the dwarves."

"Sounds like Gringotts," Hermione murmured.

"Isn't there any _light _down here at all?" complained Ron.

"If there was I should think I'd have had the sense to have turned it on by now," said Zacharias haughtily.

"I wouldn't," Ginny said, looking nettled.

Zacharias glared at her back.

The four of them spread around the cellar, prodding corners with the light of their wands for clues. The room was full of old furniture and boxes and a large, dusty, old piano stood against one wall. Ron accidently brushed it with his sleeve, remarked that it needed tuning, and moved on.

"Hey," breathed Hermione, stopping Ron with her hand.

"What is it?" asked Harry.

Everyone gathered near Ron and the piano.

Ron was staring at Hermione, "Wot?"

"Whatever you did, do it again," she breathed.

Ron shrugged, backtracked his steps, and pretended to accidentally brush the piano again.

"So what's the big deal?" he asked.

But everyone was staring beyond him. Ron followed their gaze. The lid of the piano had crept open. Ginny stepped forward and hit another key, but nothing happened.

"No, no, move aside," said Zacharias in disgust, elbowing his way to the piano. He rolled up his sleeves, cleared the dust from the bench with his wand, sat down, and dramatically touched a cord with the tips of his fingers.

The piano lid began to creep open again.

"Ah, I was right," Zacharias said in delight. "It's the old familytree song. Great Great Ant Delilah wrote it to record our history." He smiled at the piano and began to play enthusiastically.

The more Zacharias played, the wider the lid of the piano opened. The others watched in amazement. Harry was secretly wondering how Voldemort had figured out the song. Had he forced it from Hezipah?


	4. Voldemort's Lair

**Chapter Four: Voldemort's Lair**

Not only did the lid of the piano open, but the rest of the piano itself began to break into pieces and slide apart. Zacharias gave a yell and fell backward into a jumble of boxes. No one helped him up.

The piano was sinking away into small slats in the floor, and as the dust and cobwebs cleared, a large black hole was revealed. The piano had been covering a tunnel.

Harry stood like a zombie, his mind taking him back through his adventures at Hogwarts. He was standing before the trap door on the forbiden corridor and Fluffy was snarling; he was standing before the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets in Moaning Mrytle's bathroom and Lockhart was babbling; he was standing at the end of the tunnel leading to the Shrieking Shack, bruised and battered from his battle with the Whomping Willow. Beside him, Ron swallowed and clapped him on the shoulder, jerking him back to reality.

"Seems a bit familiar, doesn't it?" he asked Harry nervously.

"Well, you four carry on," squeaked Zacharias behind them, dusting himself off. "I'll just wait upstairs. Ta-ta," and he turned to flee to the stairs, but Harry grabbed the back of his robes.

"I thought you _wanted_ to come with us?" he demanded.

"Let him go," said Ron with a dismissive sneer. "He only gets in the way."

Ginny shook her head, "We can't, Ron. He knows things."

"We wouldn't have opened the tunnel without him," added Hermione reasonably.

Harry jerked Zacharias around and pushed him toward the tunnel. "We'll go first," he told the others.

"Then Ginny and I," said Hermione, standing beside Ginny.

"Then I suppose I'll bring up the rear," said Ron, who seemed pleased with this.

Zacharias straightened his clothes with jerky little movements, his blonde hair tumbling into his eyes. He scowled at all four of them. "Fine! Guess I'm coming along then, aren't I, _Weasel_?" he sneered at Ron. Then he turned, hesitated, and marched into the darkness of the tunnel.

Harry followed with the others behind him. Behind Harry, Hermione and Ginny exchanged shrewd looks.

The walls were slimy and slick, and in the distance echoed a steady drip,drip. The further they traveled, the more chilly it became. Harry could see his own breath misting the back of Zacharias's neck, which he didn't bother to stifle, even when Zacharias shivered and glared around at him.

"It's like a cave," remarked Ginny.

At the rear, Ron stubbed his toe on a loose rock and cursed.

"Shut up, Weasley," Zacharias snarled. "If there _is_ still something downhere, I'll be the first to go when it hears you!"

"All the more reason to start yelling," Ron muttered, and Hermione smiled reluctantly.

The tunnel seemed to take them steeper and steeper under ground. The ceiling became so increasingly low that the five of them were forced into an odd sort of crouching walk. Harry could hear Hermione cry with pain behind him and shout at intervals for Ron to stay off her feet. He hoped with private weariness that they wouldn't start to bicker.

After what seemed hours, the tunnel had become to narrow they were all squished into each other with their faces in their knees. To move, they had to shuffle their feet forward, inch by inch, the ceiling grating their backs and their heads thrust forth. They couldn't even turn back of they wanted.

"Are you happy now, Potter?" snapped Zacharias after banging his head on the ceiling for the umpteenth time. "We're all stuck down here in this stinking rock burrow with our faces in our groins. Must feel like home, eh, Weasley?"

Hermione gasped angrily. Even that was little too Malfoy for Zacharias.

Ron began to sputter angrily from the rear, but being as tall as he was, he was least likely to be able to speak in their current position. Zacharias carried on, "Of course, Potter must enjoy this as well. He's used to closed spaces. Living in a cupboard for ten years will desensitize _anyone_ to dung holes and rock pits."

Harry would have retorted at once, but he'd clenched his wand in this teeth long ago. He could only glare at Zacharias's back as they shuffled along.

"Well, you'd know all about dung holes," said Ginny in a surprising cool voice concerning the situation. "That's where they took your father when they arrested him, didn't they? To Azkaban?"

"What the devil are you talking about, Weasley?" demanded Zacharias, beginning to sound like himself again.

"Your father," Ginny repeated loudly. "Lucious Malfoy?"

"Malfoy!" Harry cried in a muffled voice around his wand.

"That's right," said Hermione, "We first noticed when he called Ron 'Weasel'."

"Very good, Granger," sneered Zacharias, "Never could keep your nose out of other people's business, or your _filthy_ _mudblood_ mouth shut!"

Ron finally gave a roar of fury and lunged forward. He landed hard on Hermione's back, and the rest of them were sent slamming forward, heels and heads scraping the ceiling. They were rolling like marbles down a slide, except the slide the very painful and -- unlilke marbles -- they could feel every scrape and bump.

Through the web-like cracks on his glasses, Harry was able to see Zacharias's blonde hair disappear down a hole. with all his strength, his thrust his legs our and braced himself against the frame of the hole, his resolved shaking threateningly when the three bodies of his friends slammed into him from behind.

"Ron, you idiot," swore Ginny, her mouth pressed into Harry's back.

"He called Hermione a mudblood!" exclaimed Ron from the rear, his voice muffled.

"What's going on," squeaked Hermione, her face in Ginny's hair, "Why have we stopped?"

"It was a trap," Harry grunted, his glasses slipping further and further down his nose. "Malfoy led us into a trap! The tunnel becomes a dead end at this hole, there's no other way forward."

"We can't go back," called Ron. "Too steep a climb. Know any good spells, Hermione?"

Hermione groaned uncertainly.

"I can't hold much longer!" Harry grunted.

His knees were beginning to shake. He couldn't hold three bodies against his back forever.

"Apparation," Ron said after a pause.

"No," said Harry firmly. "We can't leave after all this."

"Well, what happened to Malfoy?" Ginny demanded impatiently. "Can you see anything?"

"No, it's just dark! I heard him scream, but that was all."

"He could still be falling," Hermione said in wonder. Her voice was shaky. "He could still be falling to his death!"

"No more than he deserves," Ron grumbled.

Harry's legs gave way, and they slipped toward the mouth of the hole again. Harry reached out and grabbed the edge of the hole with his hands as well, his legs now dangling into it as the other three piled ontop of him.

"Hermione, now would be a good time," Harry groaned, only his head and arms visible beneath the mass of tangled bodies.

Hermione almost lost her wand, but caught it with her elbow, lifted it in her teeth, and cried, "Immobulous!" just as all four of them slid into the hole, screaming.

They were paralzyed in midair -- everyone, that is, except Hermione. Ron raised his wand and performed the spell, and soon the four of them were hovering together, Hermione a little way below.

"Good work, Hermione," Harry panted, gazing around.

They hung there in the darkness, like cloaks hung in a closet, panting and aching and sweating.

"Hermione!" called Ron, cupping his hands around his mouth, "Can you see anything down there?"

Hermione peered down into the darkness a long moment, the top of her bushy hair smudged black from the ceiling.

" . . . no . . ." she said carefully, and then, "Wait, I can see his wand!"

In deed, as Harry and the others watched, the yellow tip of a wand became apparent in the gloom. They could hear Zacharias's voice croak, "_Accio_!"as it echoed up to them in the darkness, and then the four of them werespeeding to the ground.

"What's the countercurse for _accio_, Hermione!" Ron yelled.

But Hermione's robes were tangled over her head and all she managed was amuffled scream as she disappeared ahead of them.

"Hermione!" panicked Ron.

Harry hardly had time to ready himself. The ground hurtled up before him and he was thrown feet-first at Zacharias, who was waiting in the gloom and stepped out of their way. They landed one after the other on the hard ground.

The last thing Harry heard was Ron's sobbing voice yelling Hermione's name and the voice of Zacharias shouting, "Expellairamus!" before he banged his head against the wall and blacked out.

"Harry?"

Harry looked up. He was lying on his face in a wood and there was soot and cobwebs in his hair. Standing before him was Albus Dumbledore in his shining, white robes.

"This task was given to you, Harry," the old wizard said. "If you don't find a way --"

"No one will," finished Harry, laughing as he took the older wizard's offered hand. "You've read The Lord of the Rings, too, Professor?"

Dumbledore smiled until his twinkling eyes were swallowed in his wrinkles, leaned over, and pulled Harry to his feet.

Harry was standing in a slimy, cavelike room, his shoulders being shaken and his face smacked. He opened his eyes to find them level with Malfoy's cold, gray ones.

"Nice of you to join us, Potter," Malfoy sneered.

The Polyjuice Potion had worn off and Draco Malfoy was standing before him, looking ridiculous in Zacharias Smith's smaller clothes. His blonde hair was mussed and his nose bleeding, as if he'd been in a brawl. The same sneer as ever was fixed to his face as he stepped back, eyes on Harry, and smiled.

"Ron . . ." sobbed a voice Harry recognized as Hermione's. "Oh, Ron . . ."

Harry looked around to see Ron slumped against the wall, Hermione kneeling beside him with her temple bleeding profusely. she broke down into miserable sobbing abd buried her face in Ron's robes.

Heart thuding, Harry looked around for Ginny, but she was backed into a corner, her lip bleeding and her body bound by a body bind spell.

"Nice work you've done, haven't you, Potter?" Malfoy spat. "Leading your friends once more to their deaths. Old Dumbledore would be proud."

Harry took a threatening step forward, "Why are you here?"

"To stop you, of course," answered Malfoy. "You think the Dark Lord doesn't know about your plan to destroy his work? The Dark Lord knows everything."

It dawned on Harry suddenly that Malfoy had no clue why he'd been sent after Harry. He didn't have the faintest inkling about the horcruxes.

"And how have you been ordered to stop me?" Harry asked, a smile puckering around the corners of his mouth. "It's too late, Malfoy."

Malfoy eyes flickered, "You really must think I'm stupid, Potter. I know you're lying."

"Yeah, I do think you're stupid, but, no, I'm not lying," answered Harry. "It's done."

Malfoy merely raised his wand, "Enough of this. My mission is to kill the others, and bring you to the Dark Lord -- alive, unfortunately."

Harry glanced sideways at Ginny, who was lifting her eyebrows and looking pointedly at Ron. She stopped quickly. Malfoy had followed Harry's gaze.

"Yes," said Malfoy, smiling, "I think Potter's little girlfriend will be first to die." He patted the collection of wands in his pocket teasingly and moved toward Ginny with a twisted smile.

"Now!" shouted Ron's voice suddenly.

Malfoy turned, but not fast enough. Ron tackled him to the ground, and the two them went rolling across it as Hermione scrambled after the dropped wands. Harry grabbed his own and aimed it at Malfoy, just as the blonde wizard was about to punch a crumpled Ron in the gut.

"Get off him," Harry ordered grimly.

Malfoy sneered, but obeyed, "Gladly. Wouldn't want the filth to rub off."

Ron staggered upright, glaring at Malfoy, and took his wand from Hermione. Ginny had been released by Hermione and her wand returned to her. The four or them stood, gazing up at the hole from which they'd fallen, silent and hopeless.

"What now?" Ron asked Harry around a painful moan.

"Yeah, what now, Potter?" added Malfoy, smiling sarcastically.

Harry sent a silent curse at Malfoy that caused his tongue to stick to the roof of his mouth.

"Um, there's -- there's something . . ." squeaked Hermione.

Everyone looked at her. Her face was stained with tears and soot, and she was pointing at yet another tunnel in the wall.

"Oh, good," said Ron in relief and started forward. Ginny pulled him back by the arm.

"Wait," she said, "there's something in there!"

A pair of green eyes glowed out at them from the darkness.


	5. The Fell Lion

**Chapter Five: The Fell Lion**

"Don't be a spider, don't be a spider, don't be a spider," muttered Ron under his breath.

"Spiders have more eyes than that," said an exasperated Ginny.

"Can't be too careful."

Everyone had moved against the wall and Malfoy's eyes were scanning the darkness above, as if any minute now something would swoop down to resque him.

"Nothing is going to stand between me and stopping Voldemort," Harry said firmly, though his hand was shaking as he raised his wand. He stepped forward, "Show yourself!"

Harry held his breath as the creature's claws thudded heavily across the ground. The glowing eyes floated closer and closer in the gloom until the face of a man appeared in the narrow beam of light from Harry's wand.

"Put your hands up," Harry ordered.

The man with the strange, glowing eyes didn't move.

"I said put them up!"

"Er. . . . Harry?" said Ron, his voice oddly highpitched. "I don't think he_ has_ any hands . . ."

"What?" Harry snapped, but when he looked down, he saw it was true.

Ron's shaking hand was aiming his wand-light at a large, tawny claw on the ground -- the claw of a lion. He moved his wand-light up and it was followed by a leg, then a furry chest and mane that followed smoothly around the face of a man. The green, glowing eyes in the man's face continued to watch them blankly.

"Holy cricket," whispered Hermione.

"You can say that again," gulped Ron. "The lion ate a man, and now its wearing the bloke's face!"

"No," Hermione snapped, and even in this situation she seemed annoyed that no one read as much as her. "_Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_. It's a Manticore!"

Harry's legs were shaking, "Did _Fantastic Beasts_ tell you how to kill one?"

"Yeah, let us know when you feel like telling us!" squeaked Ron, shaking Hermione's arm.

Hermione brushed Ron off, her eyes darting back and forth as she thought quickly. "Their skin repells almost all known charms," she whispered quickly, pacing in circles.

"Oh, _that_ helps!" cried Ginny as the creature began to snarl.

"The sting causes instant death . . ." continued Hermione under her breath.

"Oh, now I _really _feel confident," shouted Ron.

The Manticore was lowering itself, preparing to lunge. Harry backed into Ron and the two of them pulled Ginny down as the creature dove at Malfoy. Malfoy threw himself out of the way and scrambled across the floor, his face twisted in alarm.

The Manticore turned instead upon Harry, who dodged out of the way as the creature's claws ran up the wall instead. It made an aboutface, ran down the wall, and lunged across the chamber. Harry yelled and ran beneath it.

"A little help, Hermione!" he yelled as he found himself trapped beneath the Manticore's legs.

The Manticore was jabbing at Harry with its long, scorpion sting, trying to stick him as he rolled back and forth.

"Harry!" Ginny cried.

"Hold on, Harry," yelled Ron. He grabbed rocks from the ground and pelted them at the Manticore, but the rocks only fell away pointlessly and the Manticore didn't even look up.

"What was that old rhyme?" Hermione muttered to herself. "The Manticore is swift and wise . . . but its weakest spot is always its . . . its . . ."

"Hermione!" yelled Harry as Ron continued attempting to attract the Manticore's attention.

"Its weakest spot is always its . . . its . . ."

"For heaven's sake! It's _eyes_!" yelled Ginny, pointing her wand at the Manticore's face. She yelled a curse, and the Bat Bogey hex busted through the creature's vulnerable human features.

The Manticore snarled in agony and blundered in circles, its large claws smashing rocks to dust. The five of them scrambled around its thrashing legs like scurrying ants as the creature's blind blows struck chunks of falling debri from the walls.

"This way!" yelled Ron, dragging Harry toward the tunnel the creature had been guarding.

"No!" Harry yelled. "Malfoy -- "

Malfoy was trapped against the wall looking pale and frightened, unable to move as the Manticore blundered on. Harry broke from Ron and dashed back into the rain of debri, his legs wild, his arms over his head. He dodged between the Manticore's thick, thrashing legs and grabbed Malfoy's arm.

"Come on!" Harry yelled.

Malfoy sneered and shook his head.

Harry pulled his wand and relinquished the spell he'd put on Malfoy's mouth.

"Come on!" he yelled again as the Manticore roared. "You have to move or else this whole place will cave in and you'll die! Grab hold of my jacket! Alright?"

Malfoy swallowed in disgust, but glanced up at the raining rocks and debri and nodded. They ran together, Harry in the lead, to the opposite tunnel where the others waited. Harry thrust Malfoy in ahead of him and was just fleeing into the tunnel after the rest and when a rock caught him on the ear, and he sank to the ground, spent.

"Not so horrible a lad, is he?"

Harry opened his eyes. Dumbledore was standing at a window with his back to Harry, his hands folded.

Harry looked at himself quickly. He was seated in one of the chairs in Dumbledore's office. They were at Hogwarts. Dumbledore, however, was still resplendid in his white robes. He turned to Harry and smiled.

"You mean Malfoy?" asked Harry in surprise. He was starting to get a little used to these frequent visits with Dumbledore.

"Yes, I do."

Harry's nose wrinkled, "Headmaster, you can't think -- he's still working for Voldemort!"

"Is he?" Dumbledore lifted his eyebrows and turned to Harry. "Our young Mr. Malfoy has been in hiding, Harry. His mother has been helping him to hide with Polyjuice Potion. He was waiting in the Hufflepuff mansion for someone to come across him so he could take their place by force. Granted, his method of fleeing Voldemort isn't one I would have advised, but there you have it."

"So when we were in the basement and Zacharias fell . . ." said Harry slowly.

"Young Malfoy was discovered by Zacharias hiding amoung those boxes and well . . ."

"And he took Zacharias's place while we were watching the piano open. No wonder he suddenly didn't want to go." Harry broke off thoughtfully, then added, "but I still don't pity him. If Voldemort catches him, it's just what he deserves."

"But Voldemort _hasn't _captured Draco," answered Dumbledore, suddenly stern. "And Draco's decision to leave the Dark side may rule the fate of us all."

Harry was silent as Dumbledore watched him. He couldn't see how whether Draco lived or died could rule anyone's fate. All he knew was that he hated Draco and had only saved him because it had been the right thing to do.

"Don't be so quick to deal out death and judgement, Harry," continued Dumbledore with a glint in his eye. "The universe repays an eye for an eye so that we don't have to." He smiled.

Harry nodded gruffly.

"I think it's about time you rejoined your friends, don't you?" asked Dumbledore, still smiling.

Harry rose, uncertain of whether or not he should exit through the door. He usually just woke up. But Dumbledore nodded encouragingly, and Harry moved across the room, turned the knob, and was back.

Ginny was staring at him, her hands on either side of his face.

"Oh, good, I was so scared," she cried, throwing her arms around Harry's neck.

Behind her, Hermione's cheeks were streaked with fresh tears. Ron was holding her and looking relieved, while Draco hovered against the wall, pale and sneering as he watched Harry with wide, gray eyes.

"You've got to stop blacking out on us, mate," said Ron, smiling.

Hermione was breathless, "I'm so sorry, Harry, I was so stupid! How could I forget --"

"It's alright, Hermione," said Harry, getting to his feet. "The important thing is that everyone is alright."

"And by everyone, he doesn't include you," added Ron, watching Malfoy.

Malfoy hadn't taken his pale eyes from Harry's face. "Why?" he said, the sneer firmly in place but somehow incredulous at the same time. Everyone looked at him, but he kept his focus on Harry. "Why did you save me, Potter?"

"Yeah, what about that?" said Ron, wrinkling his nose at Harry.

Hermione elbowed him.

"It's what decent wizards do, Malfoy," said Harry grimly.

Malfoy didn't answer. He didn't even sneer. He just stared thoughtfully at Harry, not seeing him, his face even more pale than before. Harry moved past him down the tunnel, his wand-light aimed ahead.

"Come on!"

Everyone followed, Ron waving Malfoy's wand at him teasingly. But Malfoy didn't rise to the bait. He merely stood against the wall, thinking a long moment, before he followed the rest.


	6. The Fiery Pit

**Chapter Six: The Fiery Pit**

The Manticore's damage had been done permanently. It crashed around the chamber so hard the five of them could feel the ground quaking, and in the next few minutes, the passage behind them was filling up with rocks. They fled down the tunnel: Harry and Ginny holding hands, Ron pulling Hermione along, Malfoy staggering in the rear. The mountain of dust and debri building behind was brushing their heels when Harry came to an abrupt dead end.

The tunnel ended in a precipice jutting out over a boiling lake of fire. The ground ahead was a sheer drop. Harry put his arm out to stop the others as the heat of the lake hit his face, but it was too late. The rest of them thundered forward, and they all went crashing down the rocky slope, only stopping when Harry's hand was an inch from the lava.

"I think I broke something," muttered Ron on his stomach and lifted Malfoy's snapped wand.

Malfoy glared at him.

"Where do we go from here?" Ginny wondered as Harry helped her up.

"Don't you think it's obvious?" sneered Malfoy. He was standing apart from the others, his finger pointing at the lake.

Harry followed his gaze. Standing in the middle of the lake of lava on a platform of rock was a glass case with a cup revolving inside.

"Whoa," whispered Ron, standing with his mouth open. "That old lady loved her heirlooms alot. Talk about needing a hobby."

"No, you moron, she didn't build this," snapped Malfoy.

Ron flushed red and started at Malfoy, but Hermione stopped him.

Harry looked at Malfoy in surprise, "What do you know about it?"

Malfoy narrowed his gray eyes with disgusted impatience on Harry, "Haven't you ever seen his work before? This is You-Know-who's signature." He waved a hand at the lake of lava. "Manticores, sheer drops, obstacles -- this is how he works. Where are your brains, Potter? And they say you're the One to stop him."

Harry was slightly annoyed but said nothing. He knew Malfoy was right. He should have recognized Voldemort's work. He remembered the poison at the center of the lake in the cave and the invisible chain that had held Voldemort's boat to the bank. It all seemed a little redundant to him suddenly, but he began looking for clues nonetheless.

As Dumbledore had told Harry before, Voldemort enjoyed hiding his relics at the scene of his crimes. The locket had been hidden in the cave where he'd tortured the orphan children. The Hufflepuff mansion was where he'd killed Hezipah. It only made sense to Harry that the cup was there. But surely this was too simple -- even for Voldemort.

Malfoy folded his arms, watching the lake of lava. "There are probably salamanders in there, too."

"There are," whispered Hermione. Her voice was trembling.

Ron laughed. "Hermione," He said incredulously, "Salamanders are harmless. We handled them in Hagrid's class."

"Not those salamanders," said Ginny.

Harry looked up. There were gigantic, blue lizards in the lava. They swam as if in water. Some of them revolved around the platform like sharks around a boat of castaways while others lifted their heads toward land. Some had already began swimming in their direction.

"Don't like the look of that," Ron said tensely.

Malfoy, meanwhile, had already scrambled back up the rocky slope.

Harry began feeling the ground again.

"What are you doing?" Ginny asked.

"Feel around for an invisible chain or a switch or something," Harry told her.

The others followed suit. After a moment's frantic searching, Hermione gave a shout and held something up. A golden rope magically manifested itself in her hand. It led across the lava all the way back to the glass case which held the revolving cup. It was latched to a hook on the case's door.

"What are we supposed to do with that?" asked Ron, perplexed. "Rope it in? Across that?" He pointed incredulously at the lake of lava.

"No," said Ginny feverishly. "Look!" She took the rope in her hand and dipped her foot briefly into the lava.

"Ginny!" shouted Harry and Ron in alarm as Hermione gasped.

But when Ginny took her foot out again, it was completely unharmed.

"He means for you to swim," said Harry, as it dawned on him.

"Oh, no, Harry, you can't," cried Hermione, her pupils shrinking with fear as she gazed across the expanse of lava.

The salamanders were snarling now that the rope had been found.

"I have to," Harry told her. "I have to get that cup -- or at least see if it's the real thing."

"You idiots," Malfoy sneered, "Don't disturb the cup!"

Harry ignored him. Instead, he tied the rope around his waist and waded into the lava. It was like wading into a warm pool of mud. He glanced back and smiled encouragingly at Hermione.

"Harry! Watch out!" Ginny screamed.

One of the salamanders had swam up as he was turning and snapped at him. Harry aimed a confunding curse at it, but as soon as he'd taken care of one, another sprang up.

"Come on, he needs our help!" yelled Ron, running along the bank.

"You'll never get across that way, Potter!" yelled Malfoy from the safety of a high rock as he watched the others cursing the salamanders.

Unfortunately, Malfoy was right. The salamanders were closing in left and right on Harry, and despite his friends' best efforts, the boy-wizard had been burned twice. Not only were the salamanders hard to surpass, the lava was rising up to Harry's chin so that it was very difficult to swim. He wondered, as he sank, why apparation would not have worked just as well. But surely, Voldemort had spells against its usage in the cave, just the same as Hogwarts.

As Harry was sinking, he thought of Ginny and Ron and Hermione and all of the people he'd let down. The lava rose higher and higher . . . Then a voice broke through Harry's thoughts. The voice belonged to Malfoy.

"Aquarto!" Malfoy was shouting. "Aquarto! Aquarto!"

And to Harry's surprise, the salamanders were hissing and drawing back. Harry grabbed the golden rope and pulled himself hand over hand toward the platform. He could hear Malfoy still shouting as he managed to pull himself onto the stone stair. Up he went, the glass case slowly appearing over the top step. The cup revolved inside, glowing a bright blue light.

Harry stepped closer to the case and looked for a way to open it. It didn't seem to have a latch or door of any kind. There was only the hook to which the golden rope was tied. He scowled in frustration and began to pry at the corners of the case with his fingers. He tapped it with his wand and shouted, "Alohomora!" Nothing happened.

"Potter!"

Harry looked up to see Malfoy standing on the rocky shore, his hands cupped around his mouth and the others watching him with a mixture of amazement and suspicion.

"The hook!" Malfoy called, clawing at the air. "Twist the hook!"

Harry hesitated. Experience had taught him to be wary of anything Malfoy said. But he couldn't see how else he was supposed to open the case, and if push came to shove, he had his wand at hand.

Harry reached out, and with a determined expression, closed his hand over the hook. It twisted easily, as if it had been oiled and polished for this very purpose. The front of the glass case swung open silently.

Harry extended his hand --

"Wait!" shouted Hermione, "What if it's a portkey?"

But Harry couldn't see how he could avoid touching the cup now that he was finally here.

"That's a chance I'll take," he called back.

"What if it's cursed, like the necklace?" Hermione called.

This hadn't occured to Harry.

"It's not cursed," said Malfoy. He was smirking and leaning against a pillar of rock, his arms folded.

"Why do I get the feeling you're not telling us something, Malfoy?" Ron demanded, marching over to Malfoy.

"It's not cursed," Malfoy said again, "Because that's not the cup of Hufflepuff!" He laughed as Harry's face went pale.

Harry looked at the cup quickly and snatched it. It had been revolving in a cool, blue current of air, but was very hot to the touch once he held it. He was able to see how unextraordinary the cup was in the instant it took him to drop it from his hand. The cup left an angry red color on his palm, as if he'd stuck it in a hot bath.

"Malfoy!" Harry called angrily. "You knew about this! You knew all along!"

Ron was standing with his face an inch from Malfoy's, glaring.

"Back off, Weasley," Malfoy sneered. "If I had told you it wasn't the real thing before, would you have believed me?"

The salamanders didn't bother Harry when he swam back to shore. They seemed to realize the cup was a fake as well.

"Where's the real thing, Malfoy?" Harry demanded, shaking the cup under Malfoy's nose.

EVeryone had their wands aimed at Malfoy.

"And you better tell us everything you know," added Ron grimly.

Malfoy looked bored, "Think about it, Potter. Where was the other one? The one that opened the Chamber?"

"Your father," Harry said slowly. "He had Voldemort's things!"

"Not anymore," Ginny reminded him. "Our dad raided the Malfoys, remember?" She glared at Draco.

"What does the ministery do with that stuff when they raid it?" Harry asked Ron.

"It's confiscated," Ron answered. Then he rounded on Malfoy, "How do you know about the horcruxs?"

"Is that what they're called?" Malfoy said, smiling nastily. "Only after Potter here destroyed the one that opened the Chamber did my father realize there had been something significant about the diary. It had once possessed a piece of You-know-Who's soul."

"Did your father ever keep any of the four founders' possessions?" Hermione demanded. "Anything of Ravenclaw's? What happened to the locket?"

"Don't know what happened to the locket, Granger!" Malfoy snapped. His gray eyes were pale flames as he watched Hermione with a look of purest loathing. "It was cursed. I tried to send it to Dumbledore." He smirked at Harry, "To precious Potter's wouldbe father."

None of them looked the least bit surprised. Malfoy's eyes flickered a mixture of irritation and disappointment before he continued.

"This much is clear: when Dumbledore realized what the locket was, he sought to have it destroyed. But it was too late. The locket was stolen and put back on the market. Some say it was an inside job . . ." Malfoy's voice trailed off and a nasty smile lingered on his lips.

"Who did you give it to?" Harry asked in a low voice.

But Malfoy merely let the silence drag on, glaring steadily into Harry's violent, green eyes.

"Mundungus," breathed Hermione suddenly. She looked at the others. "Remember that day he was in Hogsmeade?"

"Don't you realize we're trapped down here? We're going to die, Potter!" Malfoy erupted suddenly. "You're not going to find any more horcruxes! This is it! I told you not to disturb the cup!"

Even as Malfoy was speaking, the cavernous room began to tremble. The ground quaked so hard that they were sent staggering into each other and Ron fell right toward the lake of lava.

"Ron!"

Ginny and Hermione grabbed him by the hair, and he roared in pain as they dragged him back.

Large, gargantuin rocks were crashing down from the ceiling and exploding in tinier pieces. The salamanders began to wail with fright and sink away beneath the lava.

"We have to get out of here!" Harry yelled, leading the others he knew not where.

"No kidding, Potter!" spat Malfoy, staggering after them. "I thought we'd stick around for afternoon tea!"

"Shut up, Malfoy!" yelled Ginny.

"I suppose you're going to make me, Weasley?" Malfoy retorted. "Take your time! We've got no where to go!"

"Shut up, Malfoy, or I'll give you somewhere to go!" snarled Ron.

But Draco was right.  
There seemed to be no way out whatsoever. The lava was steadily rising, overspilling the lip of its black pit, and swollowing the cavernous room like an unstoppable blob. Harry and the others were soon at the very highest point they could reach, watching hopelessly from the top of a jagged rock as the lava surged closer and closer to their toes. The glass case and its phony cup had been consumed long ago.

"Here's what we're going to do," panted Harry, untying the rope from his waist. "Here. Each of you tie yourselves to the rope."

"Then what?" snapped Malfoy. "We go for a swim?"

"Just do it!" Hermione snapped, smacking Draco in the face with the rope as she tossed it over her shoulder.

Malfoy was the last to fasten the golden rope around his waist when the lava overcame their gettaway and they were sent swirling into its midst. It was like trying to stomach a roller coaster. The rope was swung this way and that so wildly they were sometimes smacked into the walls.

They were like an odd sort of snake slithering through fire.

Then a strange hope filled Harry's stomach, and he felt as if a thousand happy memories had been placed in his brain. He grinned at Ginny over his shoulder, letting the soft musical cord flow through his being.

Ginny frowned at him in confusion, her face black and smudged and bleeding. But a smile overtook her features as it hit her as well.

"Phoenix song!" yelled Ron.


	7. The Masturful death of Malfoy

**Chapter Seven: Malfoy's "Death" and The Haunting of Grimmauld Place**

"I will not be smacked about in my own house!" Zacharias was shouting furiously at his mother and grandmother as he paced before the fire.

Zacharias, his mother, and his grandmother were in the large livingroom of the Hufflepuff Mansion with the fire roaring (though it was the beginning of September). Their house elf was tottering out with a tray of empty wine glasses, her young legs working hastily to get around the young master's furious pacing.

Zacharias had woken in the cellar of the Mansion filthy, bruised, and alone. The once dismembered piano stood as it had always in the dusty, cobwebbed corner of the cellar. Zacharias could very easily have dismissed the entire episode as a bad dream had it not been for the smarting lump on the crown of his head, his busted lip, and the footprints of his peers in the dust-coated floor.

Zacharias had fled the cellar at once and alerted the entire house. There were aurors searching the mansion from cellar to attic from noon to three before Zacharias was accused of prankery and promptly fined.

"This is a dangerous time, Madame," one of the aurors had said to Zacharias's mother in a stern tone. "We can't afford to be dragged from our duties by pranks. Good evening."

"Calm down, Zachy," croned his mother some hours later as she attempted to dab Zacharias's bloodied lip as he passed. "You fell down the cellar stairs and had a boo boo, that's all. Boo boos can cause bad dreams."

Zacharias brushed his mother off impatiently and continued pacing, "Will you stop it, Mother? I'm not five!"

"Hardly," grunted his grandmother. "I would have said six."

Zacharias haulted and glared at her, "I know that we've had our differences in the past, Grandmother --"

"I've told you time and again to call me Adele!" growled the old witch.

"Adele," continued Zacharias, his lip curling. "Whatever the case, it's true, I tell you! Potter and his friends blackmailed me into letting them into the house! And when we went into the cellar --"

"There _is _no secret entrance, there_ is_ no secret chamber!" snarled the old witch, flames darting from her nostrils rather like a dragon. "And if I hear you say it one more time . . ." She lifted her wand from the folds of her green and gray robes and mimicked cursing her grandson.

Zacharias glared at her, "Fine. Have it your way. But when Potter and his friends pop up in the toilet -- "

"I think it's time you went upstairs, Zachy," interrupted his mother nervously.

The old witch was looking murderous.

"I won't be told what to do like -- I won't be badgered -- " Zacharias sputtered as his mother hussled him out of the room.

But in the next moment there was a thud, and grappling mother and son turned with open mouths to see a gaggle of filthy teenagers struggling to rise from the crisp, white carpet. The old witch snorted so hard on her pipe a cloud of smoke stained her face black as Harry Potter rose and smiled nervously.

"S-sorry bout that," he choked.

"Ha!" cried Zacharias, jabbing a finger as Ginny, Ron, Hermione and Draco Malfoy rose as well. "Ha! I told you, Adele, I told you!"

"I'll be an old maid," grunted the old witch as a great, violently red bird swooped around the ceiling. "It's Fawkes!"

"I_ told_ you!" Zacharias cried again.

"Don't you have anyone else to annoy? Poisonus reptiles, perhaps?" snapped the old witch, glaring at her grandson.

"Um, run along, Zachy, I'll take care of your friends," said Zacharias's mother nervously as she tried hastily to shove her son from the room. Her hands shoved the air: she still hadn't taken her eyes off of Harry and the others.

It occured to Harry suddenly that the old witch had been cruelly mimicking her daughter (more likely daughter-in-law) when speaking to Zacharias earlier. In fact, she seemed to hate the boy. It was only the mother who called Zacharias "Zachy" sincerely.

Zacharias wouldn't leave. He sidestepped his gawking mother and glared at the intruders, his hands on his hips.

"Well?" Zacharias demanded of Harry and Ron. "Hand over the pictures, then."

"Pictures?" repeated Ron blankly. "Oh, right . . ." He pulled the camera from his pocket, but it had melted into a gray mass. He gulped. "Fred and Geogre are gonna kill me . . ."

"Then they wouldn't be so useless afterall," muttered Malfoy.

"That's the one who attacked me!" Zacharias yelped, pointing a trembling finger at Malfoy. "Quick! Call the aurors! He works for You-Know-Who!"

"What the devil are you doing in our house, Potter?" the old witch asked, but with a fond twinkle in her eyes that reminded Harry with a pang of Dumbledore. "And with Dumbledore's bird, no less."

"The founders. We need their relics, remember?" Harry answered nervously.

The old witch nodded and twinkled. "Oh, yes. Tell you what, young Potter. You convince that bird to stay with me, and I'll give you anything you want. I'll even throw in the boy for an Sickle." She laughed with Harry, Ron, and Ginny as Zacharias went pale with anger.

But Harry hardly needed to convince Fawkes of anything. He watched as Fawkes swooped in low from the ceiling and landed lightly on the arm of the old witch's chair, humming softly. The phoenix closed its eyes with delight when she stroked its head.

"Beautiful, beautiful creatures, phoenixes. I should like to have seen Dumbledore change one last time before . . ." She sighed as if holding back tears and smiled at Harry. "Ah, well."

"And you have the cup?" Harry asked, trying not to sound too eager.

Ron couldn't hold back an angry noise as the old witch reached under her chair and pulled out a shoe box.

"We went through all of that, _and she had it the whole time_!" Ron hissed, but Hermione cast him a cold look.

The old witch lifted the cup with slightly trembling, wrinkled hands from its tissue wrapping, eying it as reverently as if it was the most precious thing in the world.

"I was the keeper of the cup when I was young. Guarded it with my life." The reminiscent smile faded as the old witch eyed Harry. "This cup has many secrets, young Potter. You would do well to keep it out of . . ." She glanced at Malfoy, whose upper lip curled at her. " . . . _irresponsible_ hands."

"I plan to keep it out of _everyone's _hands," said Harry, stepping forward.

The old witch didn't hand the cup over. She was still eying Harry, "And what you plan to do with the cup is on Dumbledore's orders and not your own, of course."

"Of course," confirmed Harry, staring with such determination into the old witch's eyes that she relented and handed the cup over.

"Can't be too careful," she explained to Harry as she sat back and drew on her pipe once more. "Today's youth . . ." She made an aggrivated noise and glared at her grandson.

Zacharias swallowed and puffed his cheeks out as if someone had stuffed something foul down his throat, "Well! With that done you can all get out!" He glared at Harry.He seemed toblame him for Malfoy's attack in the basement."_Now_, Potter! And don't ever come back!"

"Shut your mouth, boy, before it disappears," croaked the old witch, waving her wand testily. "Martha!"

Zacahrias's mother, who was standing in a sort of shocked trance as she watched the proceedings of the room, jumped like she'd been shot and looked at the old witch nervously.

"Y-yes, Madame?" she answered meekly.

"Get these children cleaned up!" The old witch shifted around in her chair as if looking for something. "Oh, _where_ is that bloody house elf when you need it?"

"You called, Madame?" squeaked a voice as Zacharias's mother waved everyone clean with her wand (even the old witch's face was cleaned of its soot).

The young house elf stood quietly in the doorway, shoulders hunched.

"Show these children out," the old witch ordered.

"Yes, Madame."

"What about Malfoy?" burst Ron as the house elf attempted to bow them from the room.

None of them had moved, and Malfoy glanced quickly at Ron as if he'd ruined his escape.

Ron jabbed his thumb at Malfoy, "He's working for You-Know-Who! We can't let a Death Eater walk!"

"It's true!" jumped in Zacharias, siezing his chance. "Malfoy was a ring leader in last year's attack on the school!"

The old witch stared at Malfoy, who was looking disgusted and annoyed.

"He may bare the Mark, but he's no Death Eater at heart," the old witch said after a long moment of staring. "Couldn't kill him, could you, young Malfoy? Not your father's son after all."

"Just let me out of here, old woman," Malfoy snapped impatiently. "What would you know about it?"

The old witch's shrewd expression hadn't changed. "Of course, you're welcome to stay here. I could hide you most effectively. Give you a drought of Polyjuice Potion . . . let you stay on as Martha . . ."

Mrs. Smith and Zacharias's eyes bulged at the same moment. Zacharias began to sputter incoherently.

"Or Zacharias, if you prefer." The old witch shrugged. "I'm not very fond of either of them. Sending them away while you take one of their places wouldn't bother me."

"How can you . . ." It was the first time Harry had ever heard Zacharias's mother speak in a voice that wasn't babish or meek. She was glaring at the old witch and positively shaking in outrage. "How can you speak of us so cruelly! Charles would never allow --"

"Charles was a smart, handsome young wizard bewitched by a scarlet woman!" growled the old witch, her voice rising. "My son was an innocent victim of a love potion! You've probably done it before, haven't you?" She narrowed her eyes at Mrs. Smith, whose hands were clenched into trembling fists.

"Haven't you, you painted hus--"

"Don't call me -- !" screeched Mrs. Smith and broke off. She took a deep breath, straightened up, and glared at the old witch. "I can't wait until you die," she said through her teeth, shocking the room at large. And she turned on her highheel and marched out, dragging a sputtering Zacharias with her.

"Now that we've gotten rid of _Charles In Charge_ . . ." the old witch said with a chillingly satisfied smile. She sat back and drew on her pipe, eying Malfoy, "What say you, boy?"

"I couldn't stay in this house," answered Malfoy faintly. "Your relatives would drive me _mental_."

The old witch chuckled, squinted one eye and continued to watch Malfoy, "Then what are you going to do? Thrust yourself into the world with You-Know-Who on your tail?"

Malfoy didn't answer. He seemed confused.

"Tea, Mr. Malfoy?" asked the old witch, gesturing to an empty chair beside her.

Malfoy hesitated and sat.

"Bring Mr. Malfoy and myself some tea after you show the others out," the old witch instructed the house elf, who bowed the other four from the room with a squeaky, "Yes, Madame."

"And, Mr. Potter?"

Harry paused.

"Good luck."

"Blimey," said Ron when they were outside again. "I don't know who will drive Malfoy nuts first -- Smith, his mental mum, or that scary old woman."

"I'd place five Galleons on Grandma Smith," Harry told Ron out of the corner of his mouth, and they dodged, laughing, as Hermione swatted them with the flats of her hands.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place, of course, held no clues. Not even to the whereabouts of Mundungus Fletcher. Most of the relics gathered in last year's hurried cleaning had been stolen and sold by the crook, whose bleary eyes had shown only the slightest guilt when confronted by Harry.

"We can't even be certain he has the locket," said Hermione, looking squimish as she passed the row of mounted house elf heads.

They paused on the dusty upstairs landing, Harry looking at Hermione incredulously.

"Hermione," cried Harry, "You're the one who suggested that he did!"

"Of course I did! Who else would have taken it from Malfoy? If Mundungus was near Hogwarts, it would have been the perfect chance for Malfoy to pass the locket off and get a little bit of his money's worth returned to him."

"Yeah," said Ron thoughtfully, "I suppose stealing the locket back from Dumbledore wouldn't have been hard with Snape's help --"

Ron stopped suddenly and he and Hermione looked nervously at Harry. Mentioning Snape around Harry was like poking a sleeping dragon in the eye.

"We probably should've gone to Knockturn Alley," Ginny said, trying to keep things from going from bad to worse. "Right, Harry? It's the ideal place for a crook."

"And it's where the locket was in the first place," Harry agreed. "Who knows? It's been to the same store twice."

They were moving toward the stairs when Harry felt the hairs on his neck rise.

They weren't alone.


	8. The False Sister

**Chapter Eight: The False Sister**

Harry threw his arm out to stop the others from descending. He listened, barely daring to breathe, his heart thuding in his ears. They were being watched, he was sure of it.

Without making a sound, Harry turned slowly on his heel. Slythering along the banister behind Ginny was the large, monstrous head of Nagini, Voldemort's large pet snake. The serpent raised its head and tasted the air with its tongue, then turned its head to one side and studied Harry with one glittering eye. The eye was alive with an evil fire Harry had only seen in one person.

Harry scowled.

"What is it?" Ginny asked, barely moving her lips.

"It's Nagini. Voldemort is watching us." Harry slowly raised his wand. "Don't move," he instructed Ginny, watching the snake intently.

Ron and Hermione stood by, looking tense.

"_Don't you touch her_," Harry said in Parseltongue, but he knew the snake of Voldemort would never heed any order given by him. He suddenly yelled a curse, trying to catch the snake by surprise as he shoved Ginny aside.

The snake hit the stairs with a thud and slythered toward Ron, leaving a clean trail in the dust. Ron hopped onto the banister and pushed Hermione aside, who also raised her wand and yelled a curse. The curse merely rocketed off the snake and zinged back at her.

"Hermione!" Harry yelled, grabbing his friend's arm to yank her out of harm's way.

The serpent turned and snapped at Ginny to clear its path,then slid rapidly down the stairs. Harry leapt down the stairs two at time to catch up with it, firing curses as he went.

Without warning, the snake turned at Harry and snapped. Harry instinctively whipped Sirius's mirror out of his pocket and thrust it in front of him. Nagini pulled back with a mouthfull of glass. Bloody shards poked through the serpent's lips and scaly skin as it chomped, fighting hard to spit the glass out.

Harry watched with satisfaction as the glittering intelligence in the serpent's eyes faded. Its jaws chomped more and more languidly and the head lowered slowly to the floor, where the creature convulsed until it stopped moving altogether, eyes now glassy and dull.

"It was a horcrux," breathed Hermione, clapping herself on the forehead and pushing her hair back. "Harry, didn't you see the light in its eyes? It was like -- like --"

"Like You-Know-Who was staring up out of it," said Ron with a shiver.

"Three more horcruxes to go," said Ginny, staring at the serpent as she caught her breath.

A noise resounded in the silence from the top of the stairs. Someone was clapping slowly, the way a person would on the edge of a crowd watching a touching scene. Except this person looked anything but touched. She was standing with her head tilted to one side, her black hair tumbling in her sarcastic face, and her black robes draped around her like a bedsheet.

Bellatrix Lestrange lifted her head and dropped her hands after another round of sarcastic claps. She flashed a bone-chilling smile on the paralyzed teenagers below.

"Get out of my house," Harry said gruffly, hatred filling his lungs.

Bellatrix laughed.

"Get out of my house!" Harry yelled, advancing slowly past his friends with his wand raised.

"Going to kill me, Harry? Like you did the last time? Shall we duel?" She drew her wand and swung it lazily.

There was a large, silver ring on her hand. It flashed in the dim sunlight streaming through the boarded windows. A spidery R was engraved on the ring, flanked by silver wings.

Bellatrix noticed Harry's preoccupation with the ring and smiled her chilling smile again.

"Alright, Potter," she said slowly. "I have something you want, you have something I want --"

"Since when do Death Eaters compromise?" snapped Harry.

"You're right," Bellatrix answered. "We don't. So tell me where my nephew is, and not only will I kill you, but I'll give you this shiny ring as well!"

Harry said nothing.

"Come on, Potter! I know that you know! You can choose to tell me or I'll start killing off your friends -- the little one first." She aimed her wand at Ginny, but Harry stepped in front of her. "You can't save them all!" she cried.

"No," admited Harry, lifting his wand, "But I can kill you."

Bellatrix threw back her head and laughed loudly. "You? _Kill _someone? You can't use _Avada Kedavra_ on someone, Potter, when your heart is full of -- " she shivered as if she found it disgusting, "-- _good intent_. You couldn't perform the curse anymore than you could smash my skull with a rock. You know _why_, Potter? Because you're weak! Weak! Oh, your parents were weak too -- it's why they're dead --"

"_Crucio_!" exploded Harry, and Bellatrix collapsed in a fit of convulsions.

"Harry!" squealed Hermione.

But Harry yelled again, "_Crucio_!" and Bellatrix screamed and began to shake again, her teeth rattling in her head.

In her fit, Bellatrix's wand rolled away, and Ginny bent to pick it up.

"Now," said Harry, lifting the curse. "Hand over that ring."

"Harry," Hermione whispered at Harry's elbow, her voice trembling. She tentively touched his shoulder, "Harry, this isn't right. That's an Unforgivable Curse! And -- and it's four on one!"

"Want me to make it even?" gasped Bellatrix, sitting up with an uneven smile. There was a mad light in her eye as she watched Harry. "Is that what you want, Potter? An even chance to avenge _dear_ Sirius?"

"I want you to hand over that ring!" Harry yelled, brushing off Hermione. "Hand it over! Now!"

"Then what? You'll blindfold me and send me walking one hundred paces South?" Bellatrix cackled insanely at the cobwebbed ceiling. "That's the attitude that lost you Pettigrew, Potter. People are much easier to search when they're dead!"

Without warning, she leapt on Harry, screaming as loudly as the portrait of Mrs. Black at the bottom of the stairs. They went rolling through the dust, twisting, fighting, yelling. The others hurried after them, afraid of cursing Bellatrix incase they accidentally hit Harry.

"Cissy!" Bellatrix screamed. "Cissy! Cissy!"

"Malfoy's mum!" gasped Ron, turning to face the stairs again.

At the top of the stairs stood Mrs. Malfoy, pointed face pale and sneering. She lifted her wand lazily and everyone's wands flew from their hands and shot into hers. Her hard, gray eyes stayed fixed on the brawling pair at the bottom of the stairs as she advanced.

"Alright, Lady!" yelled Ron, leaping in front of her and raising his fists. "I've got nothing against hitting a bird who deserves it! Come on! Come on! Hit me! Try it!"

Hermione and Ginny watched, breathless, as Mrs. Malfoy lifted her hand. But the blonde witch only closedher fingersover Ron's fists and slowly lowered them. Ron stared at her, perplexed. Mrs. Malfoy smiled at him, then her eyes shifted to the girls and she winked.

Mrs. Malfoy moved past the gawking teenagers and pointed her wand at Harry.

"Cissy!" screamed Bellatrix, who Harry was trying to thrust away with his knee.

Bellatrix had Harry pinned to his back, her clawlike hands holding down his wrists. Harry was doing his best to pry her off with his feet.

"Cissy! I have him! We can take him to Master! Go on! _Curse him_!"

Mrs. Malfoy didn't move.

Bellatrix's eyes glinted, "Cissy, what are you waiting for? Curse him!" Her black eyes shifted to the teenagers standing motionless behind her sister. "Cissy . . . why didn't you kill the others?"

Mrs. Malfoy said nothing. Her wand shifted slowly from Harry's twisted face to her sister's. Bellatrix's face darkened as she realized what the others had not. Then a white light exploded from Mrs. Malfoy's wand, and Bellatrix lay motionless in a body bind, only her eyes racing angrily.

"You hate Bellatrix Lestrange too?" said Ron, perplexed. "Blimey, maybe the Malfoys are human after all."

"That's _not_ Mrs. Malfoy!" cried Hermione impatiently as the blonde witch helped Harry to his feet.

"Wot?" Ron said, nose wrinkling.

Ginny was staring at Mrs. Malfoy with a mixture of wonder and admiration. She stepped forward suddenly and hugged the blonde witch tight around the waist. Mrs. Malfoy laughed and patted Ginny's fiery, red hair.

Then the blonde witch twinkled at them as, very slowly, her nose began to change shape.


	9. Loony Takes a Bow

**Chapter Nine:** **Loony Takes a Bow**

"That's Tonks," said Harry with a relieved smile.

"Tonks?" cried Ron happily. "What are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same question," Tonks said, folding her arms. "Why aren't the four of you at school? Mrs. Weasley was in a tearful rage the last I saw her."

The four friends exchanged guilty looks.

"If I could tell you, I would, Tonks," Harry said at last. "But it's a secret mission from Dumbledore."

"Oh," Tonks blinked as if she was about to cry, but said nothing else.

They stood in the gloom of Grimmauld Place, trying in vain not to think of their deceased friends. Then Harry bent as if he'd suddenly remembered and wrenched the silver ring from Bellatrix's finger. He held it to the light slanting through the cracks of the boarded windows.

"The ring of Ravenclaw," he said.

Tonk's mouth dropped open as Harry set the ring on the floor and aimed his wand at it.

"_Bombarda_!" he yelled.

"What are you doing!" Tonks cried as the ring flew to pieces.

No one answered her. They were all too busy staring at the black esscence rising from the blasted fragments of the ring. It rose in the shape of a skull to the ceiling, where it evaporated in the thin slants of light there.

"Five down," Harry muttered. "Two to go."

"You lot have got ten seconds to tell me what's going on, or I turn into the Bloody Baron," demanded Tonks. "Five . . . four . . ."

"_Tonks_ . . ." moaned Ron.

"I mean it," Tonks said, looking from face to face. "Are you four meddling in things that you shouldn't?"

"No," said Harry sincerely. "For once we're meddling in things that we _should_. Listen, Tonks, we wondered whether you'd seen Mundungus lately."

Tonks squinted at him suspicously, "What do you want with Dung? I know he took things that belonged to Sirius, Harry, but --"

"It's not of that nature," interrupted Hermione, twisting her fingers. "It's about that locket, the one that cursed Katie Bell last year. It needs to be destroyed."

"And Harry's the one to do it," added Ginny, "On Dumbledore's orders."

This seemed to satisfy Tonks.

"Dung has been keeping his head down since Dumbledore . . . passed . . ." Tonks sniffed and cleared her throat, beaming in a forced sort of way. "The Order hasn't seen hide or hair of him since. Made off and never said a word. I know he was banished from the Hogshead, but that's where they say he's hiding now as it's the last place anyone would look for him. I go in there sometimes as a gent and I fancy I see him pretending to be a hag."

Harry nodded thoughtfully, "Thanks, Tonks."

"Please be careful," Tonks said, looking anxiously from face to face. "If I could, I'd stop all four of you and send you on to Hogwarts on the Knight bus, but as it is . . ." She gave Beallatrix a nasty look. "How about this: we'll all apparate to Hogsmeade together. I've got reinforcements waiting there for me to report. They'll be glad once I've turned in Beallatrix. Ginny, you can sidealong apparate, I suppose."

"Of course," Ginny said, taking Harry's arm.

"Good, good," said Tonks absently, drifting Beallatrix along like a puppet on invisible strings to the front door with her wand.

The others followed.

Number 12 Grimmauld Place squeezed itself back into the ground once they'd reached the street. Tonks glanced left and right, then hussled them into the alley between two muggle houses.

"You lot can apparate fairly well, right?" Tonks asked anxiously.

"I'll take care of Ron," Hermione said, ignoring Ron's scowl.

"On three then," Tonks clutched Beallatrix's arm harder than was necessary and twinkled at them cheerfully, "One . . . two . . ."

Harry felt the queasiness as he and Ginny were turned inside out. His brain was a state of confusion, but he forced it again on his destination. He could feel Ginny beside him, her convulsions as she was twisted unnaturally. Then his feet hit hard pavement and he collapsed, insensate, into nothingness and dreams.

"Harry . . ." sang a voice.

Harry sat up, clutching his head. He was seated on the floor of a dungeon he did not recognize. The room was vast and drafty, the floor hard and cold. A cabinet stood against a far wall looking rather like a wardrobe. There was also a fireplace, before which stood an old divan and an armchair.

"Harry . . ." sang the voice again.

Harry rose to his feet and brushed his jacket off, glancing around uncertainly. He knew the voice belonged to Dumbledore, but the wizard was no where in sight.

"Professor?" Harry called.

"Over here, Harry."

Harry turned to see Dumbledore standing at the bottom of a flight of stairs that lead from the dungeon to an upstairs landing. He lifted one arm and pointed at the cabinet, his long white sleeve draping like a wing.

Harry moved toward the cabinet and paused uncertainly with his hands on its handles. Dumbledore merely twinkled and nodded at him.

"There is no time to hesitate," he said.

Harry nodded firmly and pulled the cabinet doors open wide. It was empty. He looked at Dumbledore again, perplexed, but the old wizard pointed to the cabinet again.

Harry reexamined the cabinet. It was rather old and cracked, full of dust. Yet at the very bottom corner of its lowest shelf, beneath a gray cobweb, was a grubby brown package. Harry glanced at Dumbledore again before he brushed the cobweb aside and plucked the package from its corner. It was very small and fit in his hand almost like the flute Hagrid had carved for him when he was eleven. He barely had time to remark on its hourglass shape before he heard Dumbledore breathe sharply.

"Hurry, Harry, someone's coming!"

"But this is only a dream, isn't it?" asked Harry in confusion.

"Harry!" Dumbledore cried urgently. "The fire! Quick!"

Harry hurried to the fire beside which sat a bowl of Floo Powder. He hastily tossed a handful onto the hearth and stepped inside with the grubby package in his jacket.

"The Three Broomsticks!" Harry called firmly, but he glimsped Snape's glittering eyes on the opposite side of the flames before he was whisked away.

When Harry stumbled out of The Three Broomsticks five minutes later, it was to discover his friends standing in the street and arguing about where he was.

"Ah, there you are!" cried Tonks in relief. "We couldn't understand how Ginny got here when you didn't."

"How the bloody hell did you get in The Three BroomSticks, mate?" demanded Ron, grinning incredulously.

Harry touched his chest and felt the bulge there. He opened his jacket and, sure enough, there was the grubby package in his inside pocket. He looked up at the others breathlessly and shook his head.

"I suppose that could happen to anyone," said Hermione in a rush, noting tactfully that Harry had something in his possession Tonks needn't know about.

"As long as you're all here," Tonks said. She lifted Beallatrix's cursed body with her wand again and twinkled at them. "Catch you lot later. I've got some baggage to dispose of. And . . ." she clapped Harry on the shoulder, "Be careful, won't you?"

Harry assured Tonks breathlessly that he would. She smiled at the others, ruffled Ginny's hair, and marched on down the street with Beallatrix hovering before her like a parade float. People gasped and cleared her path, pointing and whispering about the captured Death Eater.

"Now what, Harry?" asked Ginny, looking up at Harry from under her flop of lustrous red hair.

Harry, whose mind was preoccupied with the package in his pocket, looked around at her in surprise.

"The Hogshead," he said. "Come on."

The Hogshead was as empty as ever. Only two witches sat in a corner playing bridge with large, pentacle-shaped cards. The barman was seated behind the bar on a stool, a paper open and his wand poking for some odd reason over the top.

Harry approached the bar.

"Excuse me?" When the paper didn't lower, he cleared his throat and tried again, "Sir?"

"Is it just me," whispered Ron out of the side of his mouth, "or is that bloke reading the paper _upside down_?"

Hermione rang the bell on the bar, "Sir? Sir!"

"How about this?" Ginny raised her wand and a jet of noisy red sparks rocketed toward the ceiling.

The two witches in the corner covered their ears and glared at her.

"Well, it worked," Ginny said, ignoring them, for the barman had lowered his newspaper -- except _she_ was no man at all.

"Loony?" croaked Ron.

"_Ron_!" Hermione cried indignantly.

Luna Lovegood sat behind the counter, her wand behind her ear and large onion-shaped earrings dangling from her earlobes. Her long blonde hair was draped as ever behind her shoulders and her large moon-eyes fell on her peers as dreamily as if she'd never heard Ginny's wand.

"Hello . . ." she said dreamily, "Butterbeers, I suppose?"

"Why didn't you answer?" Hermione demanded.

"You were saying 'sir' not 'maam'," answered Luna as if this was obvious.

"Luna," began Harry, who was still digesting her presence. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh . . ." Luna gazed at the ceiling and windows as if she herself wasn't quite sure and then smiled at Harry and the others. "I took up candy selling as a sort of summer job over at Honeydukes." She paused as if this answer was adequate enough and pulled up four butterbeers.

The others sat at the bar.

" . . . but what are you doing here?" asked Ron with a note of exasperation.

"The people at Honeydukes shut down. For some reason, they decided to go on a long vacation . . ."

"Yeah, for _some_ reason," muttered Ron under his breath. "Couldn't be that You-Know-Who is taking everything over."

"So . . . how is it you're working here now?" asked Hermione, an impatient tick going in her cheek. "I mean, is it even legal?"

"Little umbrellas," said Luna, disappearing behind the bar and reappearing with four tiny umbrellas in her fingers. She began to hand them out.

Ginny giggled.

"Luna . . ." began Harry again.

"My father talked to the barman," Luna said, now slurping her own drink and staring unblinkingly at Harry with her probing eyes. "There seem to be a lot of Snort Googles on the loose ever since the dementors left the Ministry. He thought I'd be safe here where the Order has guards standing around Hogwarts. I do my lessons at home."

She slurped so loudly on her straw that the two witches in the corner gathered their cards and left in a huff.

"We don't get many customers," Luna added unnecessarily as the witches stormed past.

"Must be the Snort Googles," Ron muttered and repressed a smile as he took a swig from his mug.

"Perhaps," agreed Luna, not catching on.

"Luna," asked Harry, "where's the barman now?"

"He stepped out for a bit, said something about lamb. I warned him about the Snort Googles, but he didn't seem to take me seriously . . ."

"I wonder why," Hermione said in an aggrivated undertone, then directly to Luna, "Do you know where we might find him? It's rather important."

"Oh, no, you shouldn't go out there either," Luna said, her large, round eyes growing even larger. "Snort Googles mostly hang about alleys and that's what the back door leads too . . ." She gave another tremendous slurp on her straw and they winced in unison.

Hermione's fingers twitched as if she was itching to snatch Luna's straw and jam it up her nose and the tick in her cheek was going even faster.

"So he's in the alley," confirmed Ginny, trying not to laugh.

Luna nodded slowly, her strange earrings swinging.

"If you're going to go . . ." she disappeared behind the bar again and straightened up, clutching potatoes in her hands. "Here." She dumped them on the bar. "They ward off Snort Googles fairly well. Sometimes you only have to smell like them for it to do the trick. The Minister's home should be Snort Google free," she said matter-o-factly, and Harry and Ron snorted into their drinks.

"Uh, thanks, Luna," Ron said uncomfortably as Luna began to stuff his jacket with the potatoes.

"I'll get those," Hermione said with sarcastic friendliness, and brushed Luna's hands away.

Luna climbed onto her stool again. "See that they're tucked in the crouch as well," she remarked dreamily, unfolding her paper once more.

Harry and Ginny snickered as Hermione went red and dropped several of the potatoes.

"Back door's around there," Luna said from the behind the paper, her finger pointing around its edge.

"Thanks," Harry said, digging in his pockets for coins.

"Don't bother . . . it's on me . . ." came Luna's voice from behind the paper, as if she could see Harry.

"Good-bye, Luna," Ginny said, giggling as the four of them moved toward the corridor Luna had indicated.

At the far end was the door under which streamed a line of light. They had barely reached it, however, when it opened and a tall grumpy-looking wizard with a long, gray beard stomped inside. He stopped short at the sight of the teenagers, then grunted and gestured at Harry to follow him as if he'd been expecting his appeareance all along.

They went back up the corridor and up a flight of stairs. The barman began to fumble with his keys, muttering to himself in an undertone. He stopped at a door maked Room 713 and unlocked it. In the far corner, staring into the fire, was a pale, hook-nosed man with greasy curtains of hair.


	10. The Package

**Chapter Ten: The Package**

"Shut the door, Aberforth," said the man from the chair without turning his head.

"Aberforth?" Hermione looked quickly at the tall, stooping wizard as he moved to obey. "You're Professor Dumbledore's brother! Your animagus -- "

"Thank you, Miss Granger, that will be quite enough. Leave showing off to the classroom," snapped the man.

"You!" Harry's wand was raised and trembling in his hand. "How dare you even show your face around here! How dare you speak to Dumbledore's brother! How dare --"

"I talk, think, and breathe," Snape said lazily. He turned in his chair and fixed Harry with his glittering, malevolent eyes. "If you'd shut your mouth for five seconds, _Potter_, the confusion would subside. Though I'd doubt it, given the apptitude you've shown in my classes."

Harry's jaw clenched in anger, but Ginny placed her hand on his arm and looked up at him.

"Five minutes, then you can kill him," she said with her eyes twinkling.

Harry resisted a smile and pocketed his wand.

"Well done, Miss Weasley," sneered Snape. "Idiocy has an antidote afterall." His eyes shifted to Ron and Hermione, "You're in luck, Weasley, perhaps Miss Granger can provide the same services."

Ron went brick red, "Just kill him, Harry. _Kill him_ and be done with it."

"No," Hermione said, looking breathless. She took a deep breath and said through her teeth, "He has information. Right now, we need him."

They crowded closer to the fire, aware that Aberforth remained behind them beside the door.

"Before the night of the tower," began Snape, not looking at Harry and the others, "Professor Dumbledore gave me something to keep in my possession, something I was ordered to pass on to you."

"Why are you obeying his orders _now?_" demanded Harry, watching Snape through narrowed eyes. "Feeling guilty, are you? Feeling sorry?"

"Potter," spat Snape, eyes dancing as they watched the flames. "You're so pathetic. I don't have time for your childishness. Do you have the fake locket?"

"Yes," said Harry in surprise. He'd kept it with him since Dumbledore's death on the tower. Without waiting to be asked, he drew it from his pocket and held it in the firelight.

Everyone stared at it.

"Good. For once you've done something right, Potter." Snape waved Aberforth over, who stomped toward them as he dug in his pockets.

"He's rather like Hagrid, isn't he?" muttered Ron. "Always shoving things haphazardly in his pockets."

Aberforth withdrew at last from the inside of his long cloak a small velvet box, long and sort of dusty. He picked a few bits of lint off, blew on it, and handed it to a disgusted Snape.

"Yes, _thank _you," said Snape, unmoved as the velvet box was held under his nose. He stared up at Aberforth impatiently from his glittering eyes. "To Potter, please, Aberforth!"

Aberforth started, but obeyed, shoving the box instead under Harry's nose.

"Thanks," Harry said uncertainly as he was releaved of the fake locket. He opened the box to be sure the real locket was there, and there it was: the golden locket lay on its velvet cushion, glistening innocently in the firelight.

"Sure you want to destroy it? Should make a nice present for little Ginerva," sneered Snape.

"Why did you do it?" Harry whispered, and the others paused near the door.

"Harry, forget it, come on," begged Hermione.

"No!" Harry yelled. "I want to know!" He marched up to Snape's chair again, who looked up at him with heavy, loathing eyes. "Why! Why did you kill him!"

Snape smiled nastily, "He asked me to."

"You liar!" Harry yelled, pulling his wand.

"Harry!" squealed Hermione.

"He's not worth it," said Ginny.

"Come on, mate," Ron strolled over and tugged Harry's arm. "Come on, we've got what we came for. There's only one more."

The task ahead came flooding back to Harry and he lowered his wand, his eyes remaining fixed on Snape. He couldn't stop glowering at Snape as Ron steered him out of the room, but Snape turned his eyes back to the flames and sat with his fingers curled under his chin.

"What's the last horcrux, you suppose?" wondered Ron quietly when they'd reached the street.

But Hermione was watching Harry carefully, "It has to do with the thing in your pocket, doesn't it?"

"What thing?" asked Ron in surprise.

"Don't miss a beat, do you?" said Ginny sarcastically. "When Harry came out of The Three Broomsticks he had a bulge in his jacket pocket. So what happened, Harry?"

Harry didn't know how to tell his friends that the last horcrux was himself. He merely walked to a table outside a cafe, sat, and pulled the grubby little package from his pocket.

"Can't sit if you don't order," said a cross witch with two sticks in her gray bun and a quill behind her ear.

"Four firewhiskeys," said Ron offhandedly.

The witch squinted at them suspiciously, "We don't serve firewhiskeys, and anyway, aren't the lot of you too young --"

"Four coffees please," Hermione said briskly, and the witch clicked away with an indignant huff. Then breathlessly to Harry, "Go on, then."

Harry began to peel the package open as the others waited, holding their breath. The witch with the gray bun returned with their drinks and paused to say in wonder, "That's a timeturner, that is! I used one in school once to get to all my classes. Was the cleverest witch of my age." She puffed with pride.

"So how is it you wound up here, then?" Ron asked, sipping from his coffee.

The witch huffed again and stormed away. "You've got five seconds!" she growled over her shoulder at them.

"Nice going, Ron," said Ginny.

"What?" said Ron innocently. "It's sad really, her being here. Hermione, you'd better keep on your toes. I can't be seen with a girl who works in a coffee shop."

Hermione gave Ron a dirty look but otherwise ignored him. "What do you think it means, Harry?"

Harry was holding the timeturner in his hand and staring vaguely across the street. Dumbledore wanted him to go back in time, but for what?

"Good question."

Harry looked around, startled, to see his old headmaster perched on the cafe's railing, one foot dangling enough to reveal a white boot. He smiled at Harry.

"You have the power, Harry, to rewrite an existance entirely different from the one you live now," Dumbledore told him. "That power -- the power of good intent, love, selflessness -- is what is locked in the Ministry at this very moment. It's something few understand, and is therefore revered in all who can wield it."

"And I've got that power . . . in me?" Harry asked.

"Who the bloody hell is he talking to?" Ron demanded of the others, his eyes wide.

Harry looked up, "It means it's time I went to Godric's Hollow."


	11. Godric's Hallow

**Chapter Eleven: Godric's Hollow**

Godric's Hollow was a mansion of blackened ruins. Harry could tell small parts of it had been restored, but by whom he was not sure. Yet the mansion was still hunched and rather collapsed, its crumbling roof depressing against the darkening sky. No, Godric's Hollow did not look at all safe enough to enter. Harry had the sick feeling that once he slipped beneath its roof he would be buried alive.

Ron swore, "Doesn't look at all like they say it used to."

"Harry, you never said what we were coming here for," Hermione squeaked, "Are you sure it's safe to go --"

"This is what he wants me to do," Harry said impatiently. "I'm supposed to go in there alone."

"And do what?" Ron demanded. "Look, mate, we said we were with you all the way --"

"And I appreciate that," Harry said, smiling at Ron. "But you had to know that at some point I'd have to leave you and go on alone."

Ron smiled reluctantly, "Yeah, you always do."

Harry clapped Ron on the shoulder, then the two of them gave in to a one-armed hug. Hermione threw herself into Harry's arms with tears in her eyes. After a moment of sufficating, Harry pulled away and turned to Ginny.

"I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow," he joked.

Ginny laughed, "That's corny!" But she threw her arms around Harry and the two of the stood locked together for a while.

Harry pulled away and smiled at them. "See you on the other side," he said, lifting his hand. Then he turned and entered Godric's Hollow alone.

"I can't let him," Ginny said after three minutes of waiting, and she ran toward the mansion, Ron and Hermione calling after her.

Harry stepped carefully through the ruins of what had been his home so long ago, his wand raised as he listened. His steps seemed to echo on forever -- crunch, crunch, crunch -- and his eyes searched the gloom for he knew not what. There was moment when he thought he wasn't alone, but he was relieved to find it was only the wind or that yet another piece of debri had fallen from the house.

Then something -- intuition, instinct -- made him stop in his tracks and look down. A baby crib, smashed and splintered, poked from the ruins. Not far away was a rocker, snapped in pieces. And even closer to the crib was a teddy. Had his parents' bodies lain here? Harry swallowed gruffly and blinked back the tears.

This spot -- this blackened, burned-down spot -- had once been his room in the magnificent mansion. This was the place where he needed to go back in time. This was where it had happened.

Harry lifted the timeturner that swung from his neck, wondering as he did so how many times he needed to turn it. Hermione's timeturner had turned in hours, not years, but this one was different. Instead of the symbolic clock that had been engraved on the bottom of Hermione's timeturner, there was atiny callendar engraved on Harry's. 1982.

Harry swallowed and began to turned the timeturner on its chain. He turned four, eight, sixteen times, his eyes closed and his heart thudding. He was not aware as Godric's Hollow began to rebuild itself around him, pieces and burnt bits flying up from the ground and back into place. He didn't notice Hagrid with a baby in his arms, arguing with Sirius. He didn't notice Voldemort's essence fleeing backwards into the house past him.

When Harry opened his eyes, he was standing in his very own room at Godric's Hollow. There was a woman seated in a rocker, very pretty, with startlingly green eyes and lustrous red hair. She was singing softly to a baby, who was asleep in her arms. She looked up in alarm when she saw Harry, her hair tumbling into her face, and the two of them gaped at each other.

"Mum?" Harry whispered, tears clouding his eyes. He sniffed and held them back as the woman rose from her chair, laid the baby in the crib, and walked carefully toward him.

She stared into his eyes a long moment, then smiled warmly and embraced him.

"Harry!" she cried. "Oh, Harry! Do you know what this means? It worked!" She pulled away, smiled at Harry again, and kissed his face. She was crying too.

"What worked?" asked Harry breathlessly, his heart thudding in his chest. He was grinning through his tears. "What worked, Mum?"

"How I've dreamt of hearing you call me that," Lily said, her voice choked as she began to cry again.

She cupped Harry's face in her hands and storked his cheeks with her thumbs, "The _charm_ worked, Harry. It was part of my plan to protect you. Now that I know it worked, I know I can do it, because I did it before -- Does that make any sense?" she added apologetically to Harry.

Harry shook his head, laughing as he remembered saying the same thing to Hermione when he had been thirteen.

"You look so much like James," Lily said, laughing too.

"And I have my mother's eyes," Harry added as if it was a remembered line, and Lily laughed again.

"There's no time," she said, nodding firmly. "Voldemort is supposed to come any night now, but now that you're here, I know he's due tonight."

Harry nodded too, his face becoming grim with the reminder. He dreaded having to see his mother die.

She smiled at him, "It will be alright, Harry. You'll see. Just use the power within you. The power you have to love."

Harry nodded, but could not stop staring at his mother. She seemed so brave and strong to him, so couragous. Being in her presence was like being bathed in a sort of warm light.

Lily returned to the rocker and cradled her son once more. "I love you, Harry," she said to the infant, but glanced up and smiled at the teenager standing before her too.

Harry didn't know what to do with himself. Lily was acting as if he knew what he should do, but all he could do was stand in the middle of the room and gape at its blue wallpaper, its bin of toys, its warm scent. All this had been his, all of this love.

Suddenly, there were footsteps thunking up the stairs.

"The closet, Harry, hurry!" cried Lily.

Harry did as he was told, and a moment later heard his father enter the room.

"I don't think he's coming tonight, Lil. We may have been spared another night," he heard James say, and a thrill went through his heart, hearing his father's voice clearly.

But even as James was speaking, the door burst open downstairs.

"Lily, take Harry and run!" he heard his father cry as he staggered from the room.

He could hear Voldemort's high voice, heard the scuffling as his father fought and was eventually failed.

Harry peered through the slants in the closet door and saw his mother rise with his infant self in her arms. She kissed the baby's head, whispered that she loved it, and squeezed her eyes shut as someone took painfully slow steps up the stairs.

"How touching," sneered a derisive voice.

Harry stifled a gasp as he beheld Lord Voldemort of sixteen years previous. This Voldemort was rather like a dementor, cloaked and faceless, with long hands cloaked in their black gloves. Harry felt his blood run cold as Voldemort pulled his wand.

"Stand aside, girl," he ordered.

"No," Lily answered, straightening up, tears standing in her eyes.

She laid the wailing in fant in its crib and stood before it, her wand held ready. Voldemort threw her against the closet with his wand and moved toward the crib.

"Make your move once he's killed me, Harry," Lily hissed, and then launched herself at Voldemort.

Harry swallowed dryly. He would have to watch her die after all. He couldn't bare it. He closed his eyes as she swung from Voldemort's arm, refusing to stand aside as Voldemort kept insisting.

"Take me instead! Don't take Harry! Take me!"

"Wretched girl!" Voldemort yelled.

A flash of green light hit the black interiors of Harry's eyelids. There was a thunk on the carpet. Lily was dead.

Harry burst from the closet, averted his eyes as he leapt over his mother's staring body, and grabbed the back of Voldemort's cloak as the evil wizard was lifting baby Harry, screaming, from his crib. Harry's hand made contact with Voldemort's cold skin, and he felt the familiar bubbling of it beneath his fingers.

Voldemort screamed and dropped the baby back into the crib, sinking to his knees. Harry took a breath and now clamped his hand over Voldemort's repulsive face, and throat. The evil wizard was melting, his body falling to pieces, and Harry realized the more he touched Voldemort, the weaker he became. Killing Voldemort with his touch was having its effect on him.

When Voldemort finally collapsed on the carpet, dead, Harry sank to his knees and a white light blinded him.


	12. Love Triumphant

**Chapter Twelve: Love Triumphant**

"Harry?"

Harry looked around. He was standing in the Weasley's garden again. Bill and Fluer were standing together, laughing and smiling, dressed in their wedding apparel -- except Bill's face was perfectly normal again. Charlie Weasley was giving a toast, Mrs. Weasley crying happily into a Hagrid's large, spotted hankerchief at his elbow.

Harry's mouth fell open: Dumbledore stood in the crowd as well, holding up a glass to the toast and apparently perfectly alive and in good health. He caught Harry's eye and smiled.

Someone elbowed Harry and he looked over to find Ron at his side.

"What's the matter with you? You look like you've seen a ghost," Ron said, almost laughing.

Hermione was standing beside him in a lovely shade of blue, her hair pulled back for the occasion. She frowned, "You alright, Harry?"

"I -- yeah -- " Harry stammered, examining his own clothing. He was dressed in a nice set of dress robes, soft green to match his eyes, which were open at the front to reveal a muggle suit. Muggle clothing had been Mr. Weasley's idea -- how he knew, he wasn't sure.

"A little too much champagne if you ask me," Ron muttered to Hermione, watching Harry.

Hermione scowled, "Harry wouldn't drink! You have to be twenty in the wizarding world!"

"What's all this about drinking?"

Harry looked around and his heart nearly stopped. Sirius had his hand clamped on Harry's shoulder. He looked young and careless again, happy and grinning in his own set of dress robes, his hair nicely cut and his face shaved. He smiled at Harry's bewilderment.

"My name's been cleared since you guys were thirteen and he still finds seeing me in public a shock," Sirius said and gave his barklike laugh. "I was going to ask you two round to our new apartment," Sirius said to Ron and Hermione. "Moony's already been by twice with Tonks. They'll be getting hitched next, you know."

"Sirius!" hissed Lupin in warning as he passed.

The band had struck up again and he and Tonks were dancing.

"Don't give her any ideas!" Lupin jerked his head at Tonks, who had her head rested on his chest and her eyes closed dreamily. Her hair was long and black for the occasion, tipped with hot pink.

Sirius laughed and wandered off, hailing Arthur Weasley jovially.

"Shall we?" Ron said, offering Hermione his arm.

Hermione smiled and took it, and they stepped into the swirling crowd.

Harry was left standing alone in bewilderment. Something wasn't right. Something had changed. Everyone was so happy, the dark mood from before had lifted. Even the Weasley twins were back to full prankery. Harry watched them snap photos as black gunk dribbled down Fleur's chin and began to spell things there like "Snob" and "Kick me."

"Our new trick gum," George told Harry in a breathless rush as he and Fred fled Mrs. Weasley's wrath.

Harry laughed, feeling lighthearted for the first time in what felt like eons to him. He went to the banquet table and stood watching the fun with a glass in one hand. Then a familiar red head broke through the crowd toward him, looking anxious. It was Ginny. She spotted him and went right to him.

"Have you figured it out yet? Or do you even remember?" Ginny said without preamble.

"You mean you can feel it too?" said Harry in relief.

"Like something's changed? Yes! I'm so glad you remember. I thought I was alone."

"But, Ginny . . ." said Harry slowly. "How is it you still have the same memories as me? The memories of the other life, of Vol --" He lowered his voice, "Of You-Know-Who returning?"

Ginny lifted her chin defiantly, but her eyes were a little guilty just the same, "I went after you when you started the timeturner. I waited until you closed your eyes and grabbed the chain. Then I hid. When you changed the course of the future . . . I was swallowed in the light with you."

"Oh." Harry was silent as he digested Ginny's words. "So Bill was never attacked by Greyback. The Death Eaters never got into Hogwarts. And Dumbledore --" He swallowed. "Dumbledore never died. It was over the night Voldemort killed my parents."

Ginny nodded solemnly. "She was very beautiful," she said suddenly, "your mother. Very nice too. I heard her singing to you. And -- and Wormtail was there. They found his body in the ruins, they say. Sirius was arrested for his murder because he showed up right afterwards and they dueled on the property. But a piece of the house fell on Wormtail and that's what killed him. Hagrid testified as a witness."

"Good," Harry said grimly. "Then he never got his chance to bringVoldemort back."

"And Ron doesn't have a clue who Scabbers is. I call him that sometimes just to annoy him." Ginny's eyes fired with silent laughter.

"But you're still the youngest quidditch Seeker in a century," Ginny went on with admiring eyes. "You're still . . . just Harry." She smiled.

"And we're still dating," Harry said, touching Ginny's chin with his thumb. "Aren't we?"

Ginny's ears flamed scarlet, but she looked Harry straight in the eye and said, "Yes."

Harry bent to kiss her, but a chorus of hoots made them both look up and smile guitily as Fred and George snapped their picture.

"I take it back, Moony," laughed Sirius. "Harry and Ginny just might beat you and Tonks!"

"Wanna go some place private?" Harry suggested.

Ginny nodded, then tightened her grip on Harry's arm, stopping him. "Harry," she said, half-frowning, half-laughing, "Where's your scar?"

Curtain Fall.


End file.
